Plans to deal with dark areas in Sunnyside
“Fixing streetlights was long overdue. It is not the failure of Tshwane metro to maintain them, but because of criminals who steal some elements from the streetlights and sell them at scrapyards in the city.”
Crime and many non-functioning streetlights in Sunnyside need urgent attention.
Ward 81 councillor Mpho Lewele revealed this during an exclusive interview with Rekord on Tuesday.
This comes after the Gauteng MEC for community safety Faith Mazibuko’s call last month for councillors to solve the problem of a high number of non-functioning streetlights in the area.
“Majority of people are sprayed with pepper sprays before being mugged in Sunnyside,” Mazibuko said.
“Criminals take advantage of the non-functioning streetlights to commit crimes.”
Sunnyside police station is one of 30 stations which are the biggest contributors of common robberies in the country as per the latest crime statistics.
“Sunnyside features among the top 30 police stations that have the problem of common robbery – this means people are not safe when walking here at night.”
According to the latest statistics, common robberies have increased by 6.1% between July and September 2022 compared to the same period in the previous year.
Lewele said fixing streetlights was long overdue.
“It is not the failure of Tshwane metro to maintain them, but because of criminals who steal some elements from the streetlights and sell them at scrapyards in the city.
“Fixing streetlights have become a futile exercise as every time the city has replaced stolen elements, the criminals come back and steal them again.”
He said a different approach needed to be taken.
“We believe that the culprits behind theft of streetlights elements are homeless drug addicts.
“They steal the elements and sell them to scrapyards to feed their addictions.”
He said they will focus on helping drug addicts through rehabilitation to become better individuals and contribute positively to the country’s economy.
“They will first get rehabilitation, followed by physical training and then get skills training.”
He said upon completion, the beneficiaries would be placed in strategic sectors – more especially special economic zones (SEZ).
Providing more explanation about the programme, he said a trained beneficiary would manufacture pencils in a specific allocated SEZ.
“This is one way of solving the problem of stealing elements.”
He said the community wanted the scrapyards which were in the inner city to relocate to industrial areas.
Lewele added that all the scrapyards needed to move out of the inner city and relocate in industrial areas to stop theft.
“This will discourage drug addicts from vandalising infrastructure because their clients would be far from them.”
Lewele said the project was at a plenary stage and more information about its development would be communicated in due course.
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