A city in darkness. That effectively describes large parts of Nelson Mandela Bay left in darkness at night as neither street lamps nor traffic lights work along some of the busiest roads.
This week, Weekend Post’s sister publication, The Herald, joined a convoy along Stanford Road — the main route leading to and from the northern areas — to see just how bad it is.
They found about 2km of Stanford Road in Helenvale shrouded in darkness as street lamps and traffic lights have been broken for more than a year.
The convoy was organised by council speaker Gary van Niekerk, who uses the road daily and has been bombarded with complaints from residents.
But Stanford Road is not the only road affected.
The Herald team also found hotspots along Uitenhage Road, Addo Road, the R75 from Commercial Road to Despatch, and the M19 turn-off into Perseverance.
These dark roads make all who use them vulnerable.
Opportunistic criminals, for example, lie in wait after placing rocks in the road in the dark and pounce on motorists who are forced to stop.
Resident Sakhumzi Mendi, who can see the Uitenhage Road and Chelsea Road intersection from his house, said it had been months, if not years, since the robots went out.
“We see accidents here all the time, and sometimes hijackings too,” he said.
“People stop at the lights, but before they can get away they are held at gunpoint.
“And if you drive here at night, and you hit something, don’t stop.
“I’ve seen people stop to help an injured dog, only to be robbed.”
At the root of this dysfunction is a combination of thuggery — thieves who steal cables — and the municipality’s inability to keep up with repairs which come with a price tag of between R50,000 and R200,000.
So while it is easy to make the municipality the sole scapegoat in this fiasco, we should also look at the role communities play, and we agree with electricity and energy political head Luxolo Namette — residents need to take back their streets and do so responsibly.
We also welcome infrastructure and engineering head Stag Mitchell’s proposal to raid and shut down scrapyards if any municipal infrastructure is found in their lots.
Without a market, the thieves will have no reason to steal infrastructure needed to keep the city running.
HeraldLIVE