Crime-ridden Diepsloot community pleads for electricity to reduce rampant lawlessness

“Life here has been hell without electricity and we are fed up,” says Rider Sithole. He is a community leader in Diepsloot’s Extension 1 where residents in about 600 shacks say the City of Johannesburg has ignored their pleas for electricity for years.

The area is overpopulated with informal shacks and inadequate communal toilets and taps. Faulty and smelling sewer water covers the streets and footpaths. Rubbish is also strewn all over.

According to Sithole, who has lived in Diepsloot for two decades, the City installed solar towers and streetlights three years ago. He says the lights only worked for a week and were never fixed.

“Without working street lights, we are always victims of criminality. Criminals wait until it is dark and then they attack. There is a new incident every weekend: robbery, rape or someone being mugged. The councillors know about this but they are not willing to save us,” says Sithole.

Resident Angie Raboshakga says he walks a kilometre over the bridge in order to charge his phone at Extension 2 which has electricity.

“Our kids are affected the most by this because they struggle with studying or doing their homework. I’m forced to sometimes throw away spoiled meat and other perishable stock at my tuck shop. I’m so disheartened. We really need power to survive,” he says.