Some residents of the Rietvlei Farms, near Rustenburg in North West, say that they have been without electricty for over a month after their transformer was damaged by a storm in February.
The residents say that they have pleaded with Rustenburg local municipality for an intervention but the municipality is failing to resolve their challenges. They say having no power is impacting on other services such as having water and good sanitation.
One resident says, “Everyday is a struggle for us. We need water to bath, wash our clothes, clean our homes, flush our toilets. We need to drive into tow, 30km everyday to charge our cellphones, lights, etc. We must buy food daily which works out much more than if we bought monthly.”
“I’ve got four kids which have to bath everyday of which we can’t. We lost all the food we had. The only steady income we have is child grants which I get for four of my kids,” laments another resident.
The frustrated residents say that they have reported their challenges to the Rustenburg local municipality numerous times but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. They say they feel let down by the municipality and government in general. These are their views:
“25 messages on the power group were sent and 39 calls were made to report the stolen pole and the stolen cable to the Rustenburg Local Municipality. The only feedback that was given was that there were no cables availbale. Our landlord replaced it himself. There is no transformer available. It feel like the municipality and the government have failed us due to that we asked for assistance with water, food parcels and feedback on when our power will be back. Until today, we got no response from them.”
Some political parties attributed the poor service delivery to lack of infrastructure maintenance. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)’s caucus leader in the Rustenburg local municipality, Sharon Letlape says, “The problem of electricity that we have in the rustenburg areas currently is not a new thing. there’s an issue of infrastructure that is not being maintained/serviced the way it should and that is not being replaced they way it should. the reality is that the residents and the growth of rustenburg is growing rapidly and this needs an infrastructure that is going to be accommodative of the number of people that we have or the number of the population that we have in the municipality.”
The municipality has undertaken to look into the matter.
Some residents of the Rietvlei Farms, near Rustenburg in North West, say that they have been without electricty for over a month after their transformer was damaged by a storm in February.
The residents say that they have pleaded with Rustenburg local municipality for an intervention but the municipality is failing to resolve their challenges. They say having no power is impacting on other services such as having water and good sanitation.
One resident says, “Everyday is a struggle for us. We need water to bath, wash our clothes, clean our homes, flush our toilets. We need to drive into tow, 30km everyday to charge our cellphones, lights, etc. We must buy food daily which works out much more than if we bought monthly.”
“I’ve got four kids which have to bath everyday of which we can’t. We lost all the food we had. The only steady income we have is child grants which I get for four of my kids,” laments another resident.
The frustrated residents say that they have reported their challenges to the Rustenburg local municipality numerous times but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. They say they feel let down by the municipality and government in general. These are their views:
“25 messages on the power group were sent and 39 calls were made to report the stolen pole and the stolen cable to the Rustenburg Local Municipality. The only feedback that was given was that there were no cables availbale. Our landlord replaced it himself. There is no transformer available. It feel like the municipality and the government have failed us due to that we asked for assistance with water, food parcels and feedback on when our power will be back. Until today, we got no response from them.”
Some political parties attributed the poor service delivery to lack of infrastructure maintenance. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)’s caucus leader in the Rustenburg local municipality, Sharon Letlape says, “The problem of electricity that we have in the rustenburg areas currently is not a new thing. there’s an issue of infrastructure that is not being maintained/serviced the way it should and that is not being replaced they way it should. the reality is that the residents and the growth of rustenburg is growing rapidly and this needs an infrastructure that is going to be accommodative of the number of people that we have or the number of the population that we have in the municipality.”
The municipality has undertaken to look into the matter.