Families demand action on illegal power
[caption id="attachment_36690" align="alignright" width="405"] DEATH TRAP: Residents stand near a power box with illegal connections[/caption]
ILLEGAL electricity connections in Port Elizabeth's Booysen Park are becoming an increasing hazard and causing friction in the area, residents and the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality say.
Families in Auburn Street and Booysen Park Drive have been left in the dark since Sunday as nearby shack dwellers' illegal electricity connections caused another transformer to blow.
The shacks are in Vastrap, a plain on which hundreds of backyard dwellers have built wooden shacks since 2010. Auburn Street and Booysen Park Drive are the only streets directly linked to the informal settlement.
The so-called izinyoka connections – wired to residents' electricity boxes and main power sources – have cost the city R93-million in the past nine months and landed Booysen Park residents with sky-high electricity bills for the last four years. - Alvené du Plessis
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