THE City of Cape Town said vandalism of electricity infrastructure has reached alarming levels in the kasis.
The city spent more than R6 million in the first quarter of 2024 alone to deal with vandalism and illegal connections.
In the first four months of the year, the municipality recorded 223 vandalism and izinyoka cases. The municipality said the damages caused by vandalism and illegal connections cost them about R6,26 million.
Residents from Ramaphosa informal settlement told Daily Sun they connect electricity illegally because they have no other option. They said if the municipality does not want to have a problem, they must connect electricity for them in their shacks.
“We will not give up on this fight because we have no option. Paraffin is expensive and it causes shack fires, so we always try to use electricity that is close to where we live. Government must connect us legally so we can also have electricity without illegally connecting to other people’s homes or from street lights,” said a resident.
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The community of Victoria Mxenge area opposite Ramaphosa also complained that residents from informal settlements connect izinyoka and disconnect their electricity connections.
“They do that at night and people are scared to confront them because we believe they are probably armed. We often wake up to homes without electricity. We want the government to provide them with their own electricity,” said Nosipho Mavuso from Victoria Mxenge.
However, the problem is not only in Ramaphosa as residents from Extension 5 in Mfuleni are also complaining about Phola Park shack dwellers illegally connecting electricity from the streetlights.
“They light their shacks and leave us in the dark. We have been fighting with these people since they occupied this space during Covid-19. The fight sometimes becomes physical and it is not right. We want them to have electricity because we have suffered enough,” said resident Vatiswa Staweti (45) from Mfuleni.
MMC for Energy Beverly van Reenen said vandalism statistics are shocking.
“We can't allow this criminality to continue. Repairs of the same vandalised infrastructure are not feasible. They place pressure on the city's resources and negatively impact our residents,” said Van Reenen.
She said municipal workers do the same thing every day in some areas due to repeated vandalism.
“For instance, recently in Leonsdale, city teams fixed streetlights the very next day and most of the lights were vandalised again,” she said.
