Johannesburg community plays cat-and-mouse with City Power
City Power removed and confiscated 60,000 kilograms of aluminium cables valued at R6-million
City Power teams removed about 60,000 kilograms of aluminium cables valued at approximately R6-million from Kanana informal settlement in Johannesburg on Wednesday. Photos: Silver Sibiya
Less than three months after City Power teams removed about 18,000 kilos of illegal cables from the Kanana informal settlement, Rabie Ridge, they had to return to remove even more illegal wiring.
On Wednesday, tensions were high as dozens of residents gathered in the streets of Kanana’s Extension 10 section to watch technicians dismantle overhead cables in the area. The team was escorted into the community by armed police officers and removed about 60,000 kilograms of aluminium cables valued at approximately R6-million.
Moments after the teams left the area, some residents we spoke to said they planned to make new illegal connections because they had no other way to access electricity.
“It’s heartbreaking to see this operation because there are no means to get us formalised electricity. We had to reconnect after they disconnected it the last time because we had no choice,” said resident Melekuhle Dlamini.
She said people would have to buy paraffin to cook and use candles for lighting which isn’t safe.
Another resident Thabang Buthelezi said he grew up in Kanana and has never had formal electricity. “We don’t have formal electricity but there are other neighbourhoods which were developed after ours that now have electricity, why not us?” He said City Power confiscating the cables will not solve the problem.
Residents of Kanana watched as police escorted City Power workers into the community to remove illegal cables.
City Power’s Zamaswazi Ngema told GroundUp that the company has had to replace ten transformers since August. “This is not only highly unsustainable and excessively costly to manage, but it’s unfairly affecting customers in neighbouring areas that are actually paying for services,” she said.
Ngema said the informal settlement is one of many across the City contributing significantly towards network overloads and infrastructure damage, which led to prolonged outages.
Last week, the neighbouring community protested outside Midrand City Power offices over ongoing outages caused by Kanana Ext 4 residents.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said that because the part of the land in Kanana was deemed not suitable for housing, formal electricity cannot be provided.
Mangena said people were mostly getting these cables from streetlights in the area. “Often if you find streetlights not working, it is because people in the informal settlements vandalised the cables and then use them for these connections.” He admitted that some employees in City Power had been found to be involved, but action was being taken against staff implicated in illegal connections.
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