Residents of Stjwetla Informal Settlement in Alexandra township vowed to reconnect their electricity back as soon as Eskom technicians left the area after disconnecting their illegal connections. They said there was no way they would survive winter without electricity. Community members who spoke to ZiMoja said they don’t mind paying the re-connection fee as long as they can keep warm and have warm meals.

THE GOVERNMENT ACCUSED OF BEING HEARTLESS

A woman who refused to be named told ZiMoja that the government was being run by heartless people who would never stay without electricity or proper sanitation. "These people are heartless, I have a newborn baby, how am I supposed to make formula for my child without electricity?" she asked. She added that she also needs to have a warm meal because she is breastfeeding. "We don’t have money to rent rooms with proper electricity that’s why we live like this but we honestly don’t want to," she said. Another resident said crime also becomes worse when there’s no electricity. "There’s too much crime here, so it’s better when there’s light because we can easily identify the suspects. People die here and the police are even afraid to come and do their job, imagine how we feel, we are even afraid to go to the toilet when it’s dark," she said. 

THREATENING NOT TO VOTE

Another resident who refused to be named said he won’t vote. " Soon they’ll be starting with their election campaigns and come here to lie to us. We won’t vote because every time they make promises they don’t keep them. They mustn’t tell us about the dangers of connecting illegally we know what we have to do. Even our children know that they don’t play where there’s wiring. He said later they’ll be calling their residential technician to reconnect them. "Each household pays a re-connection fee of R250 and a monthly fee of R300 to keep the lights on. We have no choice it’s a matter of survival," he said.

ESKOM

Eskom spokesperson Mashangu Xivamu said the illegal network connections pose a huge safety risk to the community. " They also contribute a great deal to the loadshedding that the country is dealing with. In Gauteng alone, if were able to get rid of this illegality, we’ll be able to get rid of two stages of load shedding. Obviously, they do reconnect themselves but we can’t just fold our arms because of that. This is a socio-economic that affects the broader public." He said the government won’t connect them because they are illegal dwellers in Stjwetla. " If somebody gets killed here, it is our duty as electricity providers to ensure the safety of residents because when there’s a death we become liable for it. The loss suffered from this is close to R22 billion. It’s a lot of money that we lose that can be used to generate more electricity. A business owner who owns a factory around the area asked Eskom not to disconnect the wiring from his firm to the community because they will retaliate. "They’ve threatened to burn my firm several times. So if you disconnect them they are going to retaliate towards me, that’s why I just leave them," he said.