City’s Energy teams attend to vandalised streetlights in Khayelitsha

19 February 2025

The City’s Energy teams attend to thousands of streetlight-related service requests across the metro. They are implementing interventions to make communities brighter and safer despite the extreme challenge of illegal connections, theft and vandalism of electrical infrastructure. The City is responsible for maintaining streetlights as well as high mast public lighting in Khayelitsha. Fault reporting in this area is low and we urge residents to help us protect infrastructure by reporting suspicious activity near public lighting to the City.

The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Alderman Xanthea Limberg visited Khayelitsha where teams were attending to damaged streetlight infrastructure.

‘Our City-wide streetlight maintenance and repair programme has made significant progress in recent months, pushing our public lighting burn rate closer to our 90% target in the second quarter of the current financial year. City electricity teams typically attend to thousands of streetlight service requests in a matter of days. While Khayelitsha falls within an Eskom electricity supply area, the City is responsible for the maintenance and repairs on streetlights, including high-masts in the area. By far the greatest cause of public lighting outages are due to illegal connections, theft and vandalism in this area. Often within hours of fixing infrastructure, it is impacted again by these criminal acts.

The ongoing vandalism, illegal connections and theft of streetlight infrastructure undermine our efforts to improve public safety and it places a significant burden on our resources.

‘We are committed to working with the community to ensure that Khayelitsha is a safe and well-lit community for all residents.

‘According to City data, there is significant underreporting of streetlight-related faults in Khayelitsha relative to other areas in the City. The teams on the ground often identify a number of additional unreported streetlight related faults while attending to infrastructure upgrades and routine maintenance.

Reported streetlight service requests for Khayelitsha (including duplicates):

•        January 2025 - 341
•        December 2024 - 287
•        November 2024 - 576
•        October 2024 - 454

‘The City thanks residents for working with us and are reminded that they can log streetlight and other electricity faults online via the service request platform, by dialling in our call centre, sending an SMS or by simply reaching us on our new dedicated electricity faults WhatsApp line on 060 018 1505. 

‘We further ask residents to be our eyes and ears and assist us by immediately reporting streetlight faults and any instances of vandalism, theft or suspicious behaviour.  Together, we can overcome vandalism and theft challenges and build a brighter community for all,’ said Alderman Limberg.
 
The City maintains more than 245 000 streetlights across the metro, while other national and provincial agencies maintain some national and provincial routes including the on- and off-ramps of those roadways.

Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office