Residents of Lilianton and Reiger Park complain that they have been experiencing perpetual power outages due to illegal connections for the past months.
The frustrated residents are now calling on the municipality to act decisively against illegal electricity connections in the power theft hot spots.
Jerusalema, Angelo and Joe Slovo informal settlements are among the many identified hot spots where there is a problem of illegal connections, affecting paying customers who are nearby.
“As residents of Lilianton, we have been experiencing frequent and extended outages due to illegal connections that resulted in the overloading of networks for years already. We have on many occasions tried to get the municipality to stop this problem, but nothing has changed,” said one of the concerned residents, Charlene Day.
After years of complaining about the energy department’s ‘lacklustre’ response or reaction to illegal electricity connections in Angelo informal settlement, Day subsequently took the matter to the Public Protector’s office where a hearing about the complaint was held.
“During the hearing at the Public Protector’s office, the metro agreed to ramp up its response and reaction to reported electricity complaints and find a permanent solution to the problem. However, the situation has gone from bad to worse.
“The cables are increasing by the day putting a huge strain on our grid in Lilianton. I am not surprised that we have cable faults because our grid can’t handle all the illegal connections.”
Meanwhile, Ward 34 councillor Charlie Crawford said his efforts to get the metro to address the power thefts in his area proved unsuccessful. He said the frequent power outages caused by electricity theft have resulted in huge financial losses to local businesses and disrupted service delivery in Reiger Park.
The metro has not yet responded to our enquiry.
However, in our previous report, the metro acknowledged that illegal connections are costing the city loss of revenue and that it was the main cause of unplanned power outages in many parts of the City.
Although the metro further promised to invest in more resources to help clamp down on illegal connections, the problem persists.
Also Read: Illegal connections cause headaches for residents, metro
