Izinyoka are playing with people’s lives
10 September 2015
Illegal electricity connections put people’s lives at risk and seriously affected(affect) the delivery of healthcare services in Johannesburg, Member of the Mayoral Committee for Health and Social Development Clr Nonceba Molwele said on M-Net’s Carte Blanche programme on Sunday night.
Interviewed by anchor Derek Watts, MMC Molwele said illegal connections had severely affected clinics providing healthcare services in informal settlements such as Thembelihle in Lawley in Region G and Princess Crossing in Roodepoort, Region C. In his introductory remarks, Watts said in the past financial year alone, 18 deaths linked to illegal power connections were reported. He said both City Power – the City of Johannesburg’s power utility – and Eskom lost more than R3-billion to illegal connections in the same period.
Clr Molwele said the clinics were now unable to immunise children and had to rely on generators for power. She said staff at Protea South Clinic had to use a cooler boxes to store vaccines so that they can be transported to the nearest clinics which do have power, in order to comply with the required temperature for vaccines, as its refrigerators were not working. She said the situation had become so bad that izinyoka, illegal electricity connectors, were now intimidating and threatening security guards and cutting off the fence to gain access to the generators.
“The reality is that the City pays for electricity that has been stolen by izinyoka. There can be no justification for illegal connections,” the MMC said.
In the documentary Trevor Ngwane of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) said the term izinyoka was coined by Eskom, which wanted to portray people “helping the community” gain access to electricity in a bad light. Ngwane said 20 years ago electricity was cheap. He blamed Eskom for increasing the price of electricity by more than 200% after introducing the pay-as-you-consume system.
Ngwane said Eskom went on a “switch-off campaign” during which it allegedly disconnected 20 000 households in one fell swoop. He said that was when SECC started “Operation Khanyisa” to switch on disconnected households, saying “people have a right to free electricity”.
City Power’s Stuart Webb said the power utility was fighting a losing battle because izinyoka illegally restored power as soon it was connected. Webb said this had huge financial implications on City Power as it lost 19% of its revenue to illegal connections in the past financial year alone. Webb said City Power envisaged electrifying all informal settlements in Johannesburg within the next five years.
Senior Eskom Manager Maboe Maphaka said illegal connections were putting many communities at risk.
People needed services but were not getting them because of illegal connections, he said.
Recently Eskom, City Power and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department raided the Thembelihle informal settlement in a joint operation to dismantle illegal connections.