Demand for Mfunda to visit Vastrap 'time bomb'

[caption id="attachment_38052" align="alignright" width="250"] CLEAR DANGER: Sharon Marks and Fiona Hendricks show some of the wires running to illegal connections. Picture: EUGENE COETZEE[/caption]

"COUNCILLOR Andile Mfunda had better see that he pays Booysen Park and Vastrap a visit – or are we not as important as people from Walmer?"

The demand for a visit by the city's engineering and infrastructure boss came yesterday as angry Booysen Park residents – left in the dark since last Sunday after illegal electricity connections by Vastrap shack-dwellers caused another transformer to blow – asked that the municipality relocate electricity thieves.

This week, Mfunda promised to meet Walmer township residents fortnightly as illegal electricity connections there have caused similar problems.

Residents from Booysen Park Drive and Auburn Street – directly linked to Vastrap, a plain on which hundreds of backyard dwellers have built shacks since 2010 – suffer regular power outages as the shack-dwellers make illegal connections to their electricity boxes and main power sources in the area. - Alvené du Plessis