Durban – A man was recorded casually stealing a yield sign from a Durban road at the start of the year.
According to a Facebook post by eThekwini Secure recently, the incident happened on January 1 on the corner of Zinnia Road and Dunnottar Avenue in Sydenham at 7pm.
The man is dressed in takkies, light blue jeans, a reddish golf shirt and had a backpack on his back.
In the video, the man stands next to the yield sign for a few seconds while watching traffic. He then turns to the sign, looks at it and pulls it out of the ground with both hands before walking away with it.
Combined Community Watch’s Domenic King, who saw the video, said that those poles were supposed to have been inserted into the ground with cement.
“These poles are expensive. They will probably sell it to someone doing CCTV’s,” King said.
“Plus, it’s already galvanised.”
Reacting to the video on Facebook, this is what users said:
Ravi Chetty: “Whoever he sold that pole to, that is the source of the problem.”
Kanagie Aroomugam: “Did the council actually just place it in the ground so it can be stolen or was it there for a purpose? If it was to stay then someone stole the concrete mix.”
Ian Christopher Coates asked if one has travelled on the new motorway from New Germany, past KwaDabeka to Phoenix lately.
“Every single high-mount LED street light pole has been cut down (at the ankles) and the LED street lights have been appropriated, taken, repurposed, and actually stolen! Absolutely zero police presence, no inspection, no repair, no reaction, just zero. And the roadside of that 15km stretch is littered with junk. And this is a new road,” exclaimed Coates.
Azarel Alexander said: “The fact that it comes out so easily is just as concerning as the theft.”
Ralph Jamarie said that just a little bit of concrete could have been a deterrent.
Omar Sayed questioned if that is the quality of workmanship the municipality provides.
“That pole was supposed to be concreted in the ground …. It just shows how useless the municipality is,” Sayed said.
Michel Kritzinger said: “And nobody saw a thing or him walking down the road?”
Last month, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) MEC Sihle Zikalala has welcomed the six-month ban on the scrap metal trade.
This is after the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition announced details of targeted measures to address the theft of public infrastructure for resale as scrap metal that causes more than R47 billion in damage annually to the economy. The measures involve the prohibition of the export of scrap copper and ferrous metal for a six-month period, which will be followed by a system to regulate trade in such metals.
“This will stop criminal groups from destroying municipal infrastructure in our province, which has cost hundreds of millions of rand and hurt the economy,” Zikalala said.
Daily News