RDP homeowners without electricity for a year

Over 100 families have been living in new RDP houses without electricity since September last year, when they first moved into them in Wallacedene, Kraaifontein. Zandile Mtuse, who stays with her sister and brother-in-law and their three kids, moved out of her shack in Section 14 to occupy her new home.

The new house and the neighbourhood were soon tarnished promises. There is no electricity in the house, preventing her from using her electrical appliances. “We brought a fridge from our shack, but we can’t store food in it. We cook and eat meat immediately after we buy it. We use our phones to light the house when kids bathe, eat and prepare to go to school and when we feed our babies because the house is dark,’’ she said.

Mtuse said lack of electricity forces her to use a gas stove to cook and boil water. “I buy gas for R100 to fill my 2kg gas stove four times a month. I struggle to get such money. My stove has no gas as I speak,’’ she said. She relies on her father who works as a gardener in Brackenfell for support.

She does not feel safe in the new house either. Thugs raid the houses in the evenings and rob the new house owners of their cell phones, she said. “When criminals notice phone torches shine light inside the houses,’’ said Mtuse, “they burst in and demand that we hand our phones to them at gun point. It’s winter now, so evenings are darker. Criminals kill and dump people here. We desperately want Eskom to install electricity in our houses.”

‘Life was actually
better in my shack’

Lindiwe Simanga, who stays with her husband and her three kids, said she moved out of her electrified shack in a temporary relocation area into her new RDP house in December last year. “I thought life would be better when I moved into a brick house, but it turned out that life was actually better in my shack because I had access to electricity. I brought my stove and heater from my shack, but I can’t use them here to make my house warm. The house is cold,’’ she complained.

She uses candles to light her house in the evenings and early mornings when it’s dark. “When I run out of candles, I use my cellphone torch to light my house,” Simanga said. She and other new house owners charge their phones in nearby Covid informal settlement, she said. “Our phones get damaged while we charge them there because the shack dwellers use illegal connections to get electricity.”

‘We pay to store foods
in the fridges of shack
dwellers in Covid’

New house owners pay money to get their phones charged and to store their meats and foods in the fridges of shack dwellers in Covid, she said. “They are now tired of us because our food fills up their fridges and leaves them with no space to store theirs. They make us pay R2 for charging each cell phone and R5 for storing each plastic bag of food in their fridges,” she said.

Eskom commits to connect the houses

Councillor Siseko Mbandezi, acting mayoral committee member for human settlements, said: “The city is engaging with Eskom for electricity supply to be connected with urgency. [The houses] are certified ready for occupation as per the provincial minimum building standards.”

According to the City of Cape Town, 117 units at Maroela Project were completed and handed over to the owners.

“Due to vandalism and unlawful occupation of completed Breaking New Ground (BNG) homes, the city’s human settlements department affords beneficiaries of its housing projects the choice to move into their homes before the electricity connections have been installed. Those who chose to move in without connection, to reduce the risk of their home being unlawfully occupied, do so via an explicit agreement with the city,’’ he said.

Community leader, Linda Phitho said: “I fail to understand why the City of Cape Town never included the installation of electricity in its plans to build the houses. The city treats the house owners like land occupiers who stay illegally on its land. About two months ago, residents made a gruesome discovery of a dead woman among these unelectrified houses. They could not identify the woman because it was dark. If the area was electrified, they would have easily identified the woman and connected her with her family.”

Zanele Bukani, spokesperson for the power utility, said Eskom would install electricity in the houses and issue a statement next week.