While the power utility Eskom and eThekwini Municipality has called on residents to save electricity by reducing consumption, street lights in various parts of Phoenix are left to burn throughout the day amid heavy load shedding in the area.
Areas where street lights have been left to burn during the day include Rydalvale, Whetstone, Whetfern, Fernham and other parts of Phoenix. Speaking to the Phoenix Tabloid, Whetfern resident and member of the Phoenix Environmental Forum, Pravin Nundkissor said that he’s been raising the issue of street lights being on during the day for several months.
“This is a waste of government revenue and then we hear excuses from the councillors, that eThekwini Municipality has no budget to repair street lights that are faulty and non operational at night, yet we get street lights burning during the day. For the past year and a half, I’ve contacted the mayors offices, the electricity department, and even sent an email directly to the premier’s office. A whole year has gone by and nothing has been done to rectify this problem. The street lights have been burning in broad daylight since mid 2021 which is unacceptable,” said Nundkissor.
He said: “Municipality just doesn’t care, otherwise this issue would have been resolved by now if they did. This is purely wastage as one street light pulls lots of electricity and eThekwini Municipality pays Eskom a bill for the electricity being used every month. The irony in this whole thing is that residents are currently faced with load shedding while street lights burn throughout the day, for the same residents who are being cut off from essential services to foot the bill. This totally does not make sense and is illogical thinking from the point of eThekwini Municipality. Their thinking is irrational and they need to get their act in order.”
Another resident, Shireen Chetty of Rydalvale said: “As a resident of Phoenix and a loyal rate payer, the frustration and indignity that we suffer at the hands of our municipality has now surpassed all logic. Currently we have the problem of electricity issues and load shedding, where we are told to utilise electricity sparingly, switch off our geysers, and non essential appliances etc, whereas in Phoenix, we have streetlights turned on during the day and not functional at night when it’s supposed to be on. Where is the logic in that I ask? With crime soaring in our neighbourhoods, we need the street lights on at night. So many communities in Phoenix are targets of criminal elements due to the darkness which is further exacerbated by the load shedding. We refuse to tolerate the way we are being treated as loyal rate payers of this municipality. The municipality needs to correct this problem that has being going on for almost two years now, we are becoming less and less tolerant to the way we are being treated as loyal rate payers of this municipality.”
Ward 52 councillor, Samier Singh said that non working street lights have always been a huge concern not only in Phoenix but all over eThekwini due to lack of resources and funds.
He said: “Contractors have been allocated previously to attend to the huge backlogs but after attending to the non working street lights, it will work for a few hours and then go off again. Some street lights have not been working for around 2 years and it can either be that a cherry picker is needed or that the testing room is needed to find out where the LV cable underground is damaged to repair for street lights to work.”
“There are some street lights that are on 24 hours a day which is due to non-operational sensors. There is currently no stock of sensors available at the warehouse. As councillors, we will continue to escalate these issues to the management and head of Electricity to get the problem resolved. The head of electricity, Mr Maxwell Mthembu is aware of the non working street lights and will prioritise the issue as soon as they have resources to complete the numerous non operational street lights that councillors and residents have complained about in the past,” added Cllr Singh.
The eThekwini Municipality had yet to comment by the time of print.
