Kenville’s informal residents to receive legal power connections

THE promise of legal power connections have brought some hope to the residents of the Kenville, Sea Cow Lake, KwaMathambo and Sim Place informal settlements. This comes after the mayor of Durban, Cllr James Nxumalo, recently visited the Kenville Informal Settlement, where he addressed the community.

On Monday last week, Nxumalo vowed to install prepaid electricity meters to assist the informal residents. Ward councillor, Deochand Ganesh, said he hoped the projects would reduce the issues of illegal power theft.

“By providing the informal settlers with power, I hope that formal homes will no longer be affected in the near future and that many accidental deaths will be avoided,” he said.

Since 2005, eight people, mostly children, have died at the site due to accidental electrocution.

It is believed that the project was prompted by the recent protests by Sim Place residents, who blockaded roads in Effingham with burning tyres and various other objects.

The protesters were reportedly angered when contractors removed their illegal power connections in light of the municipality’s decision to start resurfacing the roads in the area.

On Friday the Northglen News spoke to several representatives of the Kenville settlement and discovered that ‘pegging’ for the electricity poles had already commenced within the community.

However, concerns were raised by community representative, Phillip Gumede, who said that only the Jamaica Road Informal Settlement within Kenville will receive prepaid electricity infrastructures. While the Mysore or Temple Road Informal Settlement will not. “Illegal connections will continue among those people,” he said.

More than three quarters of the residents at the Kenville settlements are unemployed, and between the Mysore and Jamaica settlements there are approximately 1 200 homes that are currently being powered by illegal connections.

A similar project to provide the community with legal power was initiated last year, but when the residents began to protest over service delivery the contractors were pulled out from the site and the partially constructed infrastructures have remained stagnant.

Zweli Shangase said there has been a tremendous amount of crime within the settlement, as the darkness provided the perfect cover for criminals. “Many criminals also flee from outside the area into the settlement. Police are often to scared to come into the settlement to chase after them,” he said.

In addition to a lack of proper power, Shangase also expressed concern over ablution facilities. One drain, he said, had been leaking polluted water into the settlement for months.

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