MOSSEL BAY NEWS - As with residents in Dube Street, power interruptions at Dywili Street in Asla Park have also caused major frustration for residents in the formal houses who pay for their electricity but often suffer power failures.
Residents complain that informal dwellers are illegally tapping into the electricity supply and not paying for the service. It results in interruptions in electricity supply for the residents with legal connections who, despite paying, regularly have to make do without electricity.
Residents also complain about the forceful manner in which illegal connections are made, often leading to strife in the area.
The problem of repeated power outages in the Dywili Street area stems from the illegal connections by informal dwellers from the settlement directly behind the Thusong Centre.
Before March 2020, when the first of the informal dwellings were put up behind the Thusong Centre, the residents in the area had not had frequent interruptions.
The informal dwellings have also quashed the plans to extend the Thusong Centre with additional services for the community.
Formal houses only
The existing medium voltage and low voltage electricity reticulation at Dywili Street has been built to acceptable standards to cater to the formal houses only.
The informal dwellings behind the Thusong Centre will not be electrified at this stage as they are not part of the Upgrading of Informal Settlements (UISP) programme.
The electrification of the informal settlements is funded by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. All the informal houses on proclaimed municipal land close to Dywili Street that meet the department's criteria for electrification, were electrified in the 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2017/18 financial years.
The informal dwellings behind the Thusong Centre were erected in March 2020 and since then.
The municipality regularly conducts operations in conjunction with the SAPS to disconnect illegal supplies in all areas. While many people may want the illegal connections to be removed at night to restore the supply, residents should note that it is life threatening for the municipal standby teams to disconnect power lines or repair damage at night as they often experience a community backlash. According to the logs kept for June 2021, at least 240 operations were launched to remove illegal connections. In some instances, there were up to 20 illegal connections per pole.
Installations for 170 houses
Good news for Dube Street residents and surrounds is that in an area to the north of Mbangi and Dube streets, the LV network and service connections were installed for 170 houses in the past seven weeks.
The meters are being installed, whereafter the meter registrations have to be done by the individual consumers and the new connections can be activated any time now.
South of Mzola Street the contractor is busy with the LV network and service connections for 80 houses in the area. These connections were set to be energised by today, 30 July.
The municipality regularly removes dangerous, illegal electricity connections.
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