A spate of break-ins and brazen attacks at some of eThekwini Municipality’s community service centres have placed the municipality at risk of losing lives and becoming uninsurable.
Councillors warned that the city needs to improve security at these centres which have been targets for criminals who steal equipment.
The city revealed yesterday that it wants to conduct a security assessment of some of its facilities in order to upgrade the security in these facilities.
A report on the matter from the Governance and Resource Committee detailed the extent of the challenge of the break-ins and the robberies at the Human Capital Centre and Sizakala centres.
It showed that between 2019 and 2022, close to 18 centres had been broken into, attacked and robbed and in most of the incidents, computers were stolen.
Three more centres were damaged during the looting in July.
The centres being targeted have equipment like computers and are used by the city employees and the community. They have access to wi-fi meant to be in line with the city’s ambition of being a smart city.
Some councillors called for the security companies employed in these facilities to be taken to task for the break-ins, while others suggested the employees of these security companies should be absorbed by the city so it can be easier to hold them to account for any security breaches.
The report tabled before the full council meeting yesterday said: “This report was submitted for a possible plan of action and the conducting of a risk assessment to ensure preventive measures are in place to secure the municipal infrastructure and assets and prevent possible loss of life.”
The city said while there were measures to protect these centres like having alarms, criminals were aware of the vulnerabilities and this was compounded by the challenges of their security guards, who sometimes fail in their duties because they are unsupervised or fall asleep while on duty.
The report showed that the city might have to fork out an additional R6.3 million to beef up security.
It will spend R254 000 installing computer cages or security clips at 208 Sizakala Centres, R1.2m on racking device chips, R150 000 on body panic devices for a security company linked to the armed response and R780 000 on installing alarm systems.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi proposed that the city should absorb the security guards employed by private companies to look after municipal property.
“This could help the city have authority over these security guards; some of them might be unmotivated because they are paid poorly by the security companies which are contracted by the municipality,” he said.
ANC councillor Nkosenhle Madlala said the councillors have visited some of the centres that have been burgled.
“Installing cages over the computers is a suggestion that was put forward by the councillors during a site visit to one of the sites for inspection.
“We need to put such measures in place or we run the risk of being uninsurable or having to pay a lot of money for insurance,” said Madlala.