“We are professionals but we are tired of keeping quiet and being civil.”
Residents of Tladi Street in New Brighton expressed their frustrations over a power outage as they closed off the street with burning tyres and rubble on Tuesday morning.
The home owners in Tladi Street have been without electricity since Sunday afternoon.
They say this is a regular occurrence, due to illegal connections by residents of an informal settlement across the road.
Residents say when the informal settlement residents tamper with the distribution box, electricity along the whole road is often affected.
The Tladi Street residents said they had called Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Mongameli Bobani to tell him about their plight on Monday night, and he had promised their electricity would be restored by Tuesday morning.
One resident, who did not want to be named because she is a municipal employee, said she was very disappointed with how the municipality was handling their matter.
“This problem did not start now, and this is not our first time reporting this issue.
“We have been going for two weeks [at a time] without electricity since September.
“We are tired of receiving reference numbers for the matter and being told that technicians will be sent, to no avail.
“We called the mayor last night and we told him about our ongoing power issue and we have a recording of him promising that he would make sure our electricity is up and running by [Tuesday morning].
“He also said he would come but none of this has happened.
“We are tired of keeping quiet and being civil while the municipality ignores us.”
Ward 14 councillor Dolly Buti said she had called Bobani but he was in a meeting.
“He said that they were discussing a permanent solution because they cannot just fix the box with the illegal connection,” Buti said.
“We have this crisis today because of the informal settlement Chris Hani.”
She confirmed Bobani said he would come to meet residents at 9am, but because of the meeting with portfolio heads he had been delayed.
Buti said she had asked for illegal connections to be taken down and for power to be provided to Chris Hani residents.
“That exposed power box is a danger to the residents. Electricity must be restored for the residents of Tladi,” Buti said.
A resident said later in the day: “Like we expected, the mayor didn’t come, and our ward councillor also left.”
Municipal spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki said the municipality was looking to implement a permanent solution.
“Technicians will be sent to fix the problem.
“A solution is a planned relocation of the people in Chris Hani informal settlement to an area that can be developed.”