Siphelele Nketo 

TARGETING of electricity infrastructure has been plunging parts of Kokstad town into darkness while increasing the risk of burglaries. Recent reports have confirmed the link to criminal activity.

Greater Kokstad Municipality said that concerns of non-working streetlights in the town are caused by a scourge of cable theft.

Municipal spokesperson Zolani Siqwayi acknowledged the non-functioning of several streetlights in the town and said that the outages are due to cable theft and vandalism of streetlight infrastructure. 

“SAPS cases have been opened for cable theft incidents. We are working with SAPS and community police forums to increase patrols in hotspot areas,” he said.

He said material to repair broken infrastructure has been ordered, and repairs will begin soon.

He encouraged residents to continue reporting outages or suspicious activities in their communities to battle the scourge.