eMBALENHLE – Govan Mbeki Municipality said the council approved a budget to electrify RDP houses in Ext 22.
These houses were built three years ago and were allocated to people despite numerous faults.
A few community members even alleged that some of these houses were sold and are owned by councillors and people who did not qualify for RDP houses. A fight over illegal electricity connections broke out between residents of Ext 22 and Azania informal settlement two years ago and the Govan Mbeki Municipality had to intervene and remove the illegal connections.
Residents from the RDP houses accused the Azania residents of connecting electricity illegally even though they were also illegally connected.
The illegal connections severely overloaded a nearby transformer which regularly exploded.
eMbalenhle’s community was therefore surprised about the executive mayor, Mr Nhlankanipho Zuma’s recent statement that the RDP houses will have legal electricity.
“How can they electrify the extension 22 RDP section while we have capacity challenges throughout the township, especially with winter coming?” asked Mr June Mthombeni.
“We can support that decision only if we can see stability in our electricity supply, without unending municipal load shedding. We can say it is a good decision but not for now while we are still in this situation,” said Mr Mthombeni.
Govan Mbeki Municipality adopted Eskom’s payment plan and also said Eskom will begin to install a 20MVA permanent transformer at the Bracken substation to increase capacity at eMbalenhle. However, it is not clear when the work is going to begin as it is a six-months- project according to Mr Zuma.
“We want to know if the electrification of extension 22 RDP houses will resume before or after the installation of the permanent transformer at Bracken.
“If it will happen before then, we have a problem, because municipal load shedding for us is going to be doubled. This means that we must expect more hours without electricity than before, but if they will do it after the transformer installation, then we will be grateful for that,” said Mr Mthombeni.
Mr Zuma said Eskom will not increase the Maximum Notified Demand for eMbalenhle which is 34MVA, but the mayor believes that after the Bracken transformer’s installation, the electricity situation at eMbalenhle will improve.
The municipality took Eskom to court two years ago claiming that the power giant’s billing was incorrect.
The outcome of this court battle was never made public, but Eskom reduced eMbalenhle’s original MND of 37MVA to 34MND which is insufficient for the huge demand in the township. This has remained the situation since.
According to Govan Mbeki Municipality, they get money from the Department of Energy to electrify new legal establishments. If they do not use that money, the department takes it back.
The municipal leaders believe they have an obligation as an institution to bring services to the people. To electrify Ext 22’s RDP houses is one of these obligations and although the municipality had hoped to do it after the Bracken installation, but because of the budget time frame, the municipality is forced to do it now.
Currently, Ex 22 RDP households are still illegally tapping into the grid. This is causing damages to the infrastructure, they do not pay for the electricity consumption and they do not have meters to restrict the amount they consume.
It is for this reason why the municipality wants to electrify the RDP houses.
The municipality will save on transformer costs. They will also install electricity meter boxes for households that will restrict consumers when using electricity and will trip when overloading.
The municipality said they lose too many transformers due to illegal connections and overloading of transformers at the Ext 22 RDP houses and Azania informal settlement.
Azania informal settlement will not get electricity.
