Michael Nkalane
ANGRY residents in Khayelitsha responded to Metrorail disconnecting the illegal electricity to their homes by stoning passing cars and setting alight a truck, which in turn set fire to a number of shacks in Site B yesterday.
Trouble brewed on Tuesday when Metrorail began cutting illegal connections from the RR and X sections to the Island informal settlement.
The disconnected electricity wires, which ran under railway tracks, affected rail services to Nolungile, Nonkqubela, Khayelitsha, Kuyasa and Chris Hani train stations, leaving commuters stranded.
Residents responded by barricading roads between Nolungile and Nonkqubela train stations. Yesterday they took to the streets again, vowing to continue protesting until the 2016 elections if they did not get electricity.
Mayco member for Human Settlements Benedicta van Minnen said it was difficult to electrify the area as it was situated on a road reserve and under high-voltage Eskom power lines.
“Furthermore, parts of RR Section are extremely flood-prone,” she said
Khuliswa Nondala, 27, who has lived in the Island since 1997, said: “No more trains will pass here from now until our area is electrified.”
Nondala said residents had not been consulted.
“We paid for these cables, and they just cut it. To make matters worse, they left with them.”
Nondala said residents paid R300 a month for electricity from their R section.
Mzwandile Stemele said: “We rent electricity to buy the cables. Now our food is getting rotten. We should have been informed.”
Van Minnen condemned the retaliation of the residents and the damage caused to City and Metrorail equipment.
“These actions are simply unsustainable and are leaving the whole community in the lurch. No one wins,” Van Minnen said.
“We cannot provide certain service types due to prevailing local conditions.”
Metrorail spokesperson Riana Scott said technicians had completed repairs that would enable trains to operate in the area again.
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