Pretoria - Mamelodi residents fear for their lives and the lives of their children because they are threatened by scores of wires illegally lighting-up shacks in Alaska Informal Settlement.
Illegal connections have always been a big problem in the area and have gone on for so long that shack dwellers have erected poles to carry the live wires to the shacks located at the edge of the mountain.
Parents have never been comfortable with the sight of pupils jumping or walking under live wires that have shocked people in the past.
The people responsible for the illegal connections have become creative in that they don’t use copper wire made to move current but wires created for fencing.
Although these open wire connections threaten lives, those responsible felt it saved them money because the metro police would come and confiscate all illegally connected copper wire.
A woman who asked to be identified only as Lebogang said it was unfair that adults exposed children to this threat even outside the local Viva Foundation of South African school.
“This is a very sad and dangerous and it should propel the municipality to supply electricity to the people as soon as possible.
"We all know these illegal connections won’t stop because these fence wires are cheap and the people will keep reconnecting even after they have been disconnected. My feeling is, we need frequent raids by authorities,” she said.
Ward councillor Morwangwato Mantjane has always had a problem with the illegal connections because they have killed people in the past. Last year, he showed Pretoria News the degree to which these connections had escalated.
Mantjane said: “We proposed that the City supply temporary electricity to Alaska but the municipality could not do it after discovering that the ground surface was hard rock.
"A resolution was taken that they would be moved to another area. The previous mayor Solly Msimanga promised the residents that those people would be moved by February this year but now we have a new mayor so we’ll follow up.”
City spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said: “The issue of illegal connections is a country-wide challenge especially in urban areas. We encourage residents to report it to the Tshwane Metro Police Department on 082 891 8625 or 012 358 7095/6.”