‘I am immensely proud and grateful for the hard work and dedication of our technical teams throughout the busy festive peak period. Their commitment to keeping our streetlights on is emboldened by the City’s strategic investment in its electricity infrastructure to keep communities safe. The efforts of our teams saw an impressive 6 666 streetlight-related repair and maintenance requests attended to in just 31 days, an average of around 215 requests resolved per day. This impressive work has also aided the recovery of the City’s streetlight burn rate to an average of 89,9% over the last two reported months.

The total electricity-related service requests resolved over this period was 22 457.

‘The City maintains a large network of over 245 000 streetlights and through our sustained investments, including a R75,5 million streetlight capital budget in the current financial year, we aim to grow and maintain these important assets. Theft, vandalism, and illegal connections remain the drivers of streetlight outages. In most cases, tens of meters of cables and entire fittings are stolen, causing large and often complex streetlight faults.
 
‘Our Energy Safety Team and City Law Enforcement continue to be visible in all hotspot areas. In addition, the City is exploring anti-theft and vandalism solutions. We ask members of the public to continue to report any suspicious behaviour to us so that we can Protect Your Power together,' said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Alderman Xanthea Limberg.

Streetlight-related requests attended to per metro area:
Theft and vandalism remains the biggest driver of streetlight, and power outages

*Note: The data looks at all streetlight-related service requests closed over a particular two-week period. Data is dynamic and new requests are constantly added to the already logged requests, as well as historic service requests. The data looks only at streetlight-related requests and does not include other energy service requests attended to over the period in review.

Let’s ACT: Protect Your Power against theft, illegal connections and vandalism

• Report suspicious behaviour to the City’s Public Emergency Communication Centre: 021 480 7700
• Report illegal scrap yards to the ‘Copperheads’: 0800 222 771 (toll free, 24/7, anonymous tip-offs)

SAPS remains the lead authority in crime prevention.

Report to the City

Streetlight and electricity faults:

• Call Centre: 0860 103 089
• SMS: 31220
• WhatsApp: 060 018 1505