Power thieves cause outages

Residents of Beacon Bay and surrounding areas, and three units in Mdantsane, have in the past two weeks experienced sporadic power outages caused by illegal electricity connections.

In Beacon Bay and surrounding suburbs, residents said the power outages had lasted from 15 minutes to three hours before electricity was restored – at least three times this week – with no explanation from the municipality.

In response, Buffalo City Metro spokesman Sibusiso Cindi said: “The electricity capacity is available, but due to this act of connecting illegal electrical connections to the network, the network gets overloaded and trips out.

“This is a problem that occurs in numerous areas in BCM. Due to the magnitude of the problem and staff capacity constraints, it does take a number of days before the electricity department can get to all the areas affected.

“The electricity department can only respond to the engineering side of this issue and has no control of the illegal acts committed by the community,” he said.

Mdantsane resident Sipho Stofile said police needed to arrest the culprits.

“Instead the police say it is not their business. We take pictures of people climbing up the electricity poles and take it to the police, but that is their response,” he said.

Khayalethu Mqhayi said the community had decided to boycott elections at John Knox College on August3 because of the poor service delivery.

Monica Fihla said her electrical equipment had been damaged, and it was costing her a lot to feed her family of four.

“We have resorted to living off bread and we use candles to keep the house lit in the evenings and that is not safe.

“These shacks need to be electrified so they can buy their own electricity and are no longer be our problem.” — mbalit@dispatch.co.za