The Lusaka City Council says it is unsettled by the rising number of street light poles being damaged by some motorists.
Council Public Relations Manager George Sichimba says the local authority is losing an average of five street light poles per month due to motorists hitting into them.
Mr. Sichimba said most of the road traffic accidents involving damage of street light installations happen on weekends and are not reported.
He said motorists who happen to hit into a street light poles due to some reason must take responsibility and report to Police or Council so that arrangements to replace the pole could be made.
“When a pole is hit into and left laying down other people are taking advantage of the situation to remove fittings. Replacement of damaged poles and fittings is a costly undertaking as one pole and fittings costs not less than K15, 000”, Mr. Sichimba has said.
He said government is doing everything possible to light up the city and these efforts should be supported by all well-meaning residents.
Mr. Sichimba said the face of Lusaka has improved so much due to infrastructure development taking place in the city and no one should be allowed to frustrate the efforts of government.
He has since appealed to motorists to be responsible enough by observing speed limits on the roads to avoid mishaps leading to damage of street light poles.
Mr. Sichimba said if the circumstances leading to the damaging of the pole and indeed other public installations are beyond the motorist control, the damage should still be reported to the Council or the nearest police station.
He explained that the LCC has an arrangement with Police that all road traffic accidents resulting in damage of street light poles reported to them should be communicated to Council as well.
Ba LCC you are expecting too much from the citizen in a corrupt country like ours. Which driver will report himself to the Police or to anyone to say I just hit a street pole?
Stop living in Dreamland. Instead work on systems that could alert you to a pole being hit without anyone reporting. Zambia boasts of IT specialists, Computer programmers, Systems analysts and the likes whom the state should be utilising in situations like this. Give them the challenge, offer the money and these people will come up with solutions
@Phiri you are absolutely right. LCC has IT personnel. What is their contribution to national development? The solution is street cameras. Cameras will give you the details of the culprits. LCC should invest in IT. And also the insurance cover of vehicles should extend to public property vehicles destroy. Otherwise we will not move forward as a nation. Imagine you build a house and your tenants are damaging the gate or fence time and again without them paying for repairs.
Meanwhile the Mayor and his councillors are on a fully paid trip in China by the Chinks..they are even proud
Typical of Zambians, waiting….. No proactive actions.
Its the same as when ECL says you report corruption to ACC when ACC`s responsibility is to identify and handover to prosecution any corruption cases.
@Phiri, you are right with your proposal, which is a proactive measure.
I actually even doubt whether the arrangement you have with the Police works. Those police men taking time out of their chasing bribes to report to LCC about broken down poles?? Kuti?
He explained that the LCC has an arrangement with Police that all road traffic accidents resulting in damage of street light poles reported to them should be communicated to Council as well.
If street lights were produced locally they would be easy to replace but we can’t even manufacture a simple street light keep on importing the damaged ones at k15000 till you learn on how to invest in your own country
There is too much lawlessness and nobody cares. For instance at the junction of mungwi road and Katanga road. Some guys have started washing large trucks by the roadside which is actually on the tarmac after the side line. They even have the guts to put a triangle partly on the road so that other vehicles have to go on the oncoming Lane. This creates 2 problems, 1 is congestion as trucks struggle to pass and second which is most important that water from the washing ends up on the road which will damage the tarmac as heavy trucks pass. This road has been done at a great cost and probably after 20 or more years. I have even approached the traffic officers who pass this place twice a day to stop this from happening but nobody looks interested. My heart bleeds seeing such damage. Please…
They are more interested in fighting HH and other opposition…….
The ordinary person is busy looking for ways how to survive. If apamwamba are stealing, what do you expect from an ordinary person who is trying at least have a single meal for his family? Poverty leads to lawlessness, even the poor kapokola who has not been paid for months, and you are expecting him to perform his duties at 100%? No way.
I agree on the issue of mungwi and katanga road junction please save the roads
Sometimes street light poles are hit bcoz 1) the lights don’t work to show clearly the road markings at night-just check Grt East Rd,it is lit in patches yet we have poles almost entire road from airport roundabout to town.2) there are no visible road markings and painted pavements,motorists have to imagine where the lane ends and other begins – that pushes some motorists to get to much to sides and hit poles! THE COUNCIL MUST MAKE ROADS SAFER,MAKE NIGHT DRIVING SAFE TOO!!
The street light poles are not in the middle of the road so whether the lighting is enough or not there’s no plausible justification on why you should hit into them other than drunken or careless driving. However I am of the opinion that if cameras were installed on the streets offending motorists would be identified with minimum problems.
insure the ones in key streets.
Buy insurance on the street lights.. And let the insurance companies pay. Thats what you do with something you value
No insurer would want to foot that kind of risk