Note to Broadcasters: Please find linked soundbites in English and Afrikaans by Cllr Arista Annandale.
The DA in the Mahikeng Local Municipality will write to Cllr Gaasite Legalatladi, Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Infrastructure, requesting that she brings the Sonderwater community’s electricity crisis before the Portfolio Committee for urgent consideration and intervention.
This follows an oversight inspection at the Sonderwater village, where residents informed us that they have struggled for more than six years to obtain access to electricity. Many residents, who live in informal structures, claimed that during the first phase of an electrification project, a section of Sonderwater received electricity along with a section of the Rooigrond RDP development, yet a number of the informal structures that were connected during the first phase, are currently empty. See images here and here.
The second phase of the electrification programme, which would see 300 households connected to the grid in this financial year, is still in the pre-engineering phase.
Due to the lack of electricity, residents also struggle to enjoy access to water because boreholes cannot be drilled because water cannot be pumped. Residents are forced to travel for kilometres to the other side of the village to gather water.
The lack of electricity also negatively affects other services in the community. The Home Affairs mobile unit is unable to process ID applications because of the lack of electricity to support the mobile network.
The Sonderwater village is about 20 kilometers from Mahikeng, a distance that prevents most school learners, especially matriculants from obtaining their identity documents required to sit for the Senior Certificate examinations.
Eskom and the Mahikeng Local Municipality indicated to residents during a recent meeting that the electricity line is already at capacity and that they will not be connected until the Dihatshwane substation is completed in the 2025/26 financial year.
The DA will monitor this process and will also assist residents to review the Basic Assessment Report that has been made available for written submissions by 26 June 2023. (See Basic Assessment Report draft here).
In the interim, the DA will propose that the Directorate of Infrastructure apply for solar smart boxes to the Department of Energy through the Portfolio Committee.
It is unacceptable that, almost 30 years into democracy, people are forced to endure life without the most basic services such as housing, electricity, water, and roads.
The DA will continue to fight for the dignity of communities to be restored.