• City Power says that criminals are simply sabotaging public infrastructure around Johannesburg.
• Street lights across the city are being broken, but nothing is stolen.
• The company has had nearly 1 000 incidents of vandalism in the last few months.

Amid the myriad issues affecting South Africa’s wealthiest and most populous city, is a wide-ranging decline in public infrastructure. Despite the fact that Johannesburg had a budget of R69.4 billion for the 2022/2023 financial year, public organisations like City Power say they are fighting a near-impossible battle to control the scourge of vandalism in the city.

The latest sees City Power, Johannesburg’s electricity infrastructure company, call communities across the city to aid it in apprehending individuals that target street lights. According to the company, street lights across the city are being vandalised en masse, with areas like Randburg, Roodepoort, Hursthill, Lenasia, Malibongwe, Kibleberg and more being particular hotspots for this activity.

In the time between July 2023 and January 2024, City Power documented over 997 incidents of vandalism and theft. Only 75 suspects have been apprehended, they now face jail time – a maximum of which could be up to 15 years.

What’s worse is that the majority of this vandalism is being done simply to disrupt the city. “[City Power] has also observed from the pattern of these destructive acts that the criminality points to sabotage as most streetlights are mowed down with nothing taken,” the utility says in a statement posted to X.

Street lights targetted usually have their internal wiring ripped out and left hanging, leaving the lights not functional. Criminals will target the lights during loadshedding, City Power says, and they target several lights in a row, leaving entire streets without lighting in one go.

“Diminished visibility in affected areas raises safety concerns for residents and pedestrians,” City Power explains of the consequences of the lights being broken, “increasing the risk of accidents and compromising overall community well-being.”

There are other consequences to this criminality. For example, City Power says that there have been instances of electrocutions of undocumented foreign nationals in informal settlements around the city. These individuals are also difficult to track, due to their lack of documentation and the fact that they live in informal areas. City Power says this makes policing and watching over its infrastructure even more difficult.

“The prevalence of illegal miners, especially in Florida, adds to our challenges, as some of these Zama-Zamas often resort to stealing and vandalising our network,” the company explains.

“Furthermore, the risk of exacerbated by a coordinated insider threat, where individuals with intricate knowledge of the network facilitate criminal activities. Last week, the City’s energy provider arrested a subcontractor in the Lenasia area for tampering with streetlights.”

City Power is reiterating calls for communities to keep their eyes and ears open for any sabotage attempts in Johannesburg electrical infrastructure.

Last month, MTN announced that it would establish a crime surveillance centre in Soweto, to aid the local community in being vigilant against criminals who target the telco’s own infrastructure, including towers, and affect the connectivity of those living nearby.

[Image – Photo by Mukesh Naik on Unsplash]