Johannesburg community plays cat and mouse with City Power over illegal connections

Residents of Kanana watched as police escorted City Power workers into the community to remove illegal cables. (Photo: Silver Sibiya)

By Silver Sibiya

17 Oct 2024

City Power removed and confiscated 60,000kg of aluminium cables valued at R6-million.

Less than three months after City Power teams removed about 18,000 kilogrammes of illegal cables from the Kanana informal settlement, Rabie Ridge, they had to return to remove even more illegal wiring.

On Wednesday, tensions were high as dozens of residents gathered in the streets of Kanana’s Extension 10 section to watch technicians dismantle overhead cables in the area. The team was escorted into the community by armed police officers and removed about 60,000kg of aluminium cables, valued at approximately R6-million.

Moments after the teams left the area, some residents we spoke to said they planned to make new illegal connections because they had no other way to access electricity.

Residents of Kanana watch as police escorted City Power workers into the community to remove illegal cables. (Photo: Silver Sibiya)

“It’s heartbreaking to see this operation because there are no means to get us formalised electricity. We had to reconnect after they disconnected it the last time because we had no choice,” said resident Melekuhle Dlamini.

She said people would have to buy paraffin to cook and use candles for lighting, which wasn’t safe.

Another resident, Thabang Buthelezi, said he grew up in Kanana and had never had formal electricity.

We don’t have formal electricity but there are other neighbourhoods which were developed after ours that now have electricity; why not us?

“We don’t have formal electricity but there are other neighbourhoods which were developed after ours that now have electricity; why not us?” He said City Power confiscating the cables would not solve the problem.

City Power’s Zamaswazi Ngema told GroundUp that the company had had to replace 10 transformers since August.

“This is not only highly unsustainable and excessively costly to manage, but it’s unfairly affecting customers in neighbouring areas that are actually paying for services,” she said.

Ngema said the informal settlement was one of many across the City contributing significantly towards network overloads and infrastructure damage, which led to prolonged outages.

Last week, the neighbouring community protested outside Midrand City Power offices over ongoing outages caused by Kanana Extension 4 residents.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said that because the part of the land in Kanana was deemed not suitable for housing, formal electricity could not be provided.

Mangena said people were mostly getting the cables from streetlights in the area.

“Often if you find streetlights not working, and it is because people in the informal settlements vandalised the cables and then use them for these connections.”

He admitted that some employees in City Power had been found to be involved, but said action was being taken against staff implicated in illegal connections. DM

First published by GroundUp.

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