Cape Town - Connecting electricity illegally is big business in some townships in Cape Town - one man makes R10 000 a month by ensuring the lights stay on in the Marikana informal settlement in Philippi.
The man charges people between R300 and R500 every month for illegal connections from streetlight poles to their shacks.
The City loses R250 million worth of electricity every year because of illegal connections.
An illegal electricity connector hooks people up from electricity poles along Sheffield Road and makes sure that glitches in the system are quickly sorted out.
But residents living in brick houses in Lower Crossroads, opposite the informal settlement along Sheffield Road, are complaining that the illegal connections are to blame for them going without electricity for the past two weeks.
But residents that benefit from the illegal electricity connections say they don’t mind paying for illegal electricity.
On Wednesday, groups of people from each community squared up against each other. Lower Crossroads residents were demanding the Marikana residents stop using electricity illegally.
Unathi Hermanus said her home in Lower Crossroads has not had electricity for the past two weeks and she suspects the illegal electricity from the poles along the road has something to do with it.
She said before the informal settlement was erected their electricity had never been cut off, nor did they experience blackouts.
“We want an end to the practice of connecting electricity illegally because it is affecting people that are acquiring electricity legally.
“We want the police, the City and Eskom to intervene because if we take the law into our own hands, it is going to be ugly,” said Hermanus.
The man responsible for creating the illegal connections said he would speak to the Cape Times on condition of anonymity.
He said he earns about R10 000 a month from about 30 residents that he is helping.
“I am sceptical of revealing more information about this because it is illegal.
“Exposing this (illegal connections) means a lot of people in this area (Marikana) would go without electricity,” he said.
“People can connect to the poles themselves, but I tell them not to interfere or trip the wires I have already connected,” he said, adding that the disadvantage was that people know him and he could easily be arrested.
“I am unemployed and making something out of my life other than killing or raping. The job is risky, but someone has to do something when there is a market,” he said.
The City’s utility services mayoral committee member, Ernest Sonnenberg, said while the City endeavours to remove illegal connections as quickly as possible, residents often quickly reinstate them.
He said about 4 percent of total electricity distributed by the City in 2013/14 was estimated to have been stolen.
Cape Times