Celani Sikhakhane
The community of Masondeza in Newcastle are accusing power giants Eskom of disconnecting their electricity.
The community in rural KwaZulu-Natal paid a private contractor R20,000 per household to get connected after their municipality had failed to provide the village with electricity.
Community member Thandazile Mncube told Scrolla.Africa that the community of over 100 households waited for more than two years for the municipality to sort out their electricity before they resorted to hiring a contractor.
“Each household paid the contractor R20,000. The contractor did a very good job and in December 2021 we had the brightest Christmas since we relocated to this area,” she said.
Mncube says that they were buying prepaid electricity, without any issues, until April.
“We came back from our different jobs and found heavily armed police with Eskom officials who were cutting down electricity wires and taking meter boxes,” she said.
She says it was painful that they were back to square one living in the dark and the extremely cold weather of Newcastle.
The anger has led community members to March to Eskom headquarters, demanding their electricity back and even threatening to destroy their vehicles if the power entity fails to return their lights.
Mncube’s neighbour Raphael Malevu said that they have been applying for electricity at their local municipality since 2019, when they arrived in the area. The village, still newly formed, was established in 2017 by the rural working class community and business people.
Contractor Xolani Gumbi, who was hired by the Masondeza community to install electricity, said he is aware of the ordeal his clients suffered. Gumbi is a licensed electrician who works around Amajuba district.
“I was hired by that community to install electricity to their households. Unfortunately in April a guy who said he was from Eskom came with police to disconnect everything.
“But the matter is with Eskom so that they could be able to fix the damage that has been done,” said Gumbi.
Eskom KZN spokesperson Joyce Zingoni said residents illegally connected the transformers and meters to the Eskom system.
“There are specific process to be followed when you self build and such was not done in this case. Their connection was illegal,” Zingoni said.
