“I have lived here all my life. But the past two years have been the worst,” she explains.
Nyathi says the nightmare began last year when their electricity would be cut off for no reason.
“We laid numerous complaints to the municipality and they would send people to fix it. But it would get cut off again,” says Nyathi.
She says it was only at the beginning of this year that the electricity meter was changed.
However, the solution only led to more problems.
• Read: Angry residents demand illegal electricity connections reinstalled
“Soon after we got the new meter, we realised that our units (of electricity) would get finished quicker than usual.”
Nyathi says sometimes the family has to recharge more than once a day to keep the lights on.
“And I’m not talking about R20. We buy for no less than R80 at a time,” she says.
She says she is always concerned when she works night shift if her children will wake up with any electricity to get ready for school.
“This is unreasonable. We can’t even use the geyser anymore.”
She claims that the (red) warning does not even go off when they recharge.
“It just keeps beeping.”
• Also read: Tackling illegal electricity connections
Wilson Busakwe, councillor for Ward 90, says “people need to be educated about the avenues they must take if they have persistent issues.”
He added that many people have similar issues, but they do not attend community meeting or report to their ward councillors.
Busakwe is available at BuliThando Park on week days from 9am.
Numerous attempts to get comment from Ekurhuleni municipality were not fruitful.
