“They’ve taken money meant for installing electricity in our homes and paid their workers instead. Now we find ourselves at the mercy of ruthless criminals because our houses are in the dark.”
This accusation was levelled against King Sabata Dalindyebo municipal bosses by an angry Siyabonga Mbangatha, chair of the residents organisation of Maiden Farm Extension – a new RDP residential settlement on the outskirts of Mthatha – this week. The residents were accusing municipal authorities of taking millions of rands allocated to connect them to the national grid and using the money instead to fund outstanding task grade payouts owed to municipal workers.
As a result, the residents complained, they were being terrorised by criminals who lay in wait to mug them in the dark of night.
Mbangatha said the community was officially told three years ago that electricity was coming.
Some time later they were informed it was coming in July last year.
But there is still no power in the area.
He said: “Every time we go there [KSD] we get given the runaround. People are getting mugged coming back from work at night because there is no electricity in our houses.
“Even the streets have no high-mast lights.”
What was most painful to residents was that transformers and electrical poles had been installed in the settlement and were standing unused.
The Dispatch has reported that Eastern Cape cooperative governance & traditional affairs MEC Fikile Xasa tabled a scathing report last month following a three-month investigation at KSD, which uncovered that last year KSD bosses had used infrastructure grant allocations from national government to pay off outstanding task grade salaries to its employees.
Some of the grants were intended for KSD to connect households to the national grid.
A mother of two, Ntombi Boyce, said she was spending R80 a week on filling up her a gas cylinder.
“I am unemployed and survive by doing odd jobs.”
Tyre thieves were also wreaking havoc.
KSD municipal spokesperson Sonwabo Mampoza said they were pleading with the residents to exercise patience.
Mampoza said a plan was in place to ensure that their homes would be connected to the power supply, but he could not say when...