Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is grappling with a severe infrastructure crisis that has left over 10 000 streetlights non-operational and plunged large areas of the metro into darkness, councillors and opposition leaders have revealed.
During a site visit to the Municipality’s Diaz Street depot on Wednesday, 17 September, the state of the city’s maintenance fleet emerged, with Councillor Ondela Kepe describing a dire situation where municipal vehicles have become casualties of systematic neglect.
“A large portion of our fleet is standing still, either waiting for maintenance or repairs or is completely written off,” Kepe stated.
He added: “Of the 27 streetlight repair trucks (cherry pickers), 16 are currently in for repairs and seven are damaged beyond repair, leaving four operational vehicles to service the entire metro.
“Most of what you are seeing (vehicles) is for the electricity and energy directorate; different directorates have all these vehicles that are not functional and not maintained,” said Kepe. “The darkness we are seeing across Nelson Mandela Bay is a result and symptom of what you are seeing here today.”
Councillor Rano Kayser painted an even starker picture of the situation, describing the depot as “a mechanical graveyard” that directly impacts service delivery.
“This impacts directly on service delivery, and as a result, cars come in here to be buried. The consequences are dark streets and a lack of service delivery, with dark streets leading to crime,” Kayser stated.
Democratic Alliance Mayoral candidate, Retief Odendaal, has escalated the matter by writing to Eastern Cape MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Zolile Williams, requesting an investigation under Section 106 of the Municipal Systems Act into alleged maladministration.
According to Odendaal, it is estimated that over 10,000 of the Metro’s 40,000 streetlights are non-operational, creating conditions that allow “crime to run rampant and lives to be lost in road accidents.”
“The streetlight crisis has created serious public safety concerns, with dark streets contributing to increased crime rates and traffic accidents.
“The situation represents what officials describe as a “serious dereliction of duty that compromises public safety and hinders economic activity,” said Odendaal.
“With over 10,000 streetlights out and our city in darkness, only four of the 27 municipal streetlight repair trucks are in working order.
“The rest are rusting in yards around the metro.”
Meanwhile, the municipality has recently appointed nine contractors for streetlight repair work.
When questioned on whether the non-operating street repair trucks would affect whether the newly appointed contractors would be able to do streetlight repairs, Municipal spokesperson Sithembiso Soyaya said there would be no impact.
“Contractors have all the equipment required to conduct repairs.”
