City of Cape Town Link

City meets with Mfuleni community leaders

Mfuleni is supplied by both Eskom and the City. Eskom is responsible for the maintenance and repairs of its infrastructure, where it supplies electricity within Mfuleni.Mfuleni has experienced massive unlawful land occupation in the past two years resulting in some of the new settlements not being serviced and residents resorting to illegal electricity connections, which are straining the distribution reticulation infrastructure. This causes overloading and premature failure of equipment. While electrification of the settlements would assist to put a stop to these illegal connections, it has not been possible because they were established on land parcels that were not proclaimed for human settlement and in some cases, on private land. The City has, however, fast tracked the reproclaiming of land parcels in the area which could be considered suitable and will soon allow those land parcels which have been proclaimed to be electrified by either Eskom or the City depending on their location. <figure class="subtopic-fullsize-img"> <img src="https://resource.capetown.gov.za/cityassets/Media%20Centre/VAN%20REENEN_MFULENI1.jpg" class="responsive" alt="" style="width:1069px;" /> </figure>'We engaged community leaders and Eskom about solutions to resolve ongoing vandalism and illegal connections in the area. We simply cannot allow this criminality to continue. Constant repairs of the same vandalised infrastructure is not feasible and unfortunately places significant pressure on City resources. This negatively impacts our residents, who experience outages and insufficient street lighting. When the City disconnects illegal connections, criminals often reconnect and vandalise infrastructure further within hours, leaving many homes without electricity for extended periods. Between January and June 2022, illegal connections and vandalism to electricity infrastructure in the Mfuleni area cost the City more than R2 million.'There is no justification for communities to take matters in their own hands and establish illegal connections in the absence of formal electrification. This is not only unsafe for the community but also vandalises and destroys electricity equipment and is a criminal offence. We urge residents to help us bring criminals to book by reporting illegal electricity connections to the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the City.'We are offering a reward to anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest, confiscation of stolen or illegal goods or the handing-in of illegal or stolen goods. This reward is also applicable to information leading to the arrest of people vandalising, damaging or stealing electricity infrastructure or installing illegal connections. We call on communities across the metro to work with us to help protect community infrastructure,' said Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Beverley van Reenen.Report damage to municipal electrical infrastructure:• SMS: 31220• Email: <a href="mailto:power@capetown.gov.za" target="_blank">power@capetown.gov.za</a>Anonymous tip-offs welcomed:Residents can give anonymous tip offs if they are aware of illegal activity that is taking place; that has happened or is still to happen. Please call 112 from a cell phone (toll free) and 107 from a landline or 021 480 7700 for emergencies. End

2022-08-11T22:00:00Z

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Comment on the proposed lease of City-owned property under Kromboom Road Rail Bridge, Crawford
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