DURBAN - VANDALISM of municipal infrastructure has prompted the eThekwini Municipality to rope in the State Security Agency (SSA) in a bid to track down those responsible for the damage which costs the city millions of rand in repairs and affects service delivery.
This week mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said the municipality had called on the SSA for help.
The SSA has the overall responsibility for civilian intelligence operations.
The municipality has to pay millions of rand to fix infrastructure that has been deliberately sabotaged. In some cases, residents are left without water or electricity because of the vandalism.
Kaunda, in an exco meeting on Tuesday, said it was important to bring in additional resources because of the impact vandalism had.
He said the city believed some of the challenges the municipality experienced in service delivery were not just due to its ageing infrastructure, but vandalism also played a major role.
Approached for comment, mayoral spokesperson Mluleki Mntungwa said bringing in the SSA would mean intelligence-driven operations could be conducted to track down those behind the vandalism of infrastructure.
DA councillor Nicole Graham said the issue of infrastructure was a serious concern and the announcement regarding the SSA was encouraging.
“We are pleased that there has been some escalation of this matter, we have put questions to council to determine what impact this is having on our infrastructure because the reality is that it is underestimated by the municipality,” she said.
She added there was deliberate destruction of municipal infrastructure and this deserved a lot more attention from authorities than it was currently receiving.
“There is a good example of this, that issue with the Mount Edgecombe substation. Cables were cut by someone who had the equipment, that has an impact on consumers, it cost a millions of rand to fix and has a knock-on effect.”
She said the municipality also needed to be clear on what it was doing internally to deal with this issue.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said this was a positive step.
“We need more of these innovative moves to try and protect our infrastructure, we are not just protecting infrastructure but the resources that are needed by the community.”
He said it was a concern that such a move had not been implemented earlier in order to contain the damage.
“Why has this taken so long after so much infrastructure has been damaged.
“It is important that we are able to stop all vandalism of infrastructure because if we don’t, it would be like pouring ratepayers money into a drain,” said Nkosi.
EFF councillor Thabane Miya said they supported the move to involve state security.
He said vandalising of state infrastructure in the democratic era was tantamount to sabotage.
“This vandalism of infrastructure affects the community through the disruption of services like water and it perpetuates corruption in the form of the hiring of water tankers,” he said.
Mava Scott, spokesperson of the SSA said they did not comment on operational matters in public, but they were not a law enforcement agency and their role would be limited to identifying the risk and how the city could mitigate those risks.
“The rest would have to be done by the SAPS, as to who has done what and where they could be found, that will be for the police,” he said.
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