NELSON MANDELA BAY MUNICIPALITY - Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality

Published: November 27, 2024

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MMC Mnqokoyi brings early Christmas joy with electrification of homes

Thousands of residents from Motherwell who were officially and legally connected to

the electricity grid on Tuesday, 26 November 2024, by the Nelson Mandela Bay

Municipality have expressed joy and relief following the electrification of 120 homes at

Emithini Informal Settlement.

NMBM Mayoral Committee Member for Electricity and Energy, Cllr Ziyanda Mnqokoyi

led the energising of the homes, which symbolised a new dawn for the community and

an end of electricity related protests and fights between the informal settlement

residents and formal housing residents.

An excited beneficiary, Jongiwe Piko said: "It’s a wonderful day for us today, a day we

have been dreaming of for years and it has finally happened. Christmas has definitely

come early and we are grateful that we will have a normal and dignified Christmas like

other families in this Metro. We were fighting with the formal houses across the street

and paying money to have illegal connections but today we are committing that we will

remove the illegal connections and work with the Municipality to protect the

infrastructure they have given us.”

The 120 households form part of about 700 households earmarked for the energising

project in the area. The project is being rolled out in phases.

MMC Mnqokoyi said the Metro was committed to provide safe and legal electrification

to all qualifying residents of NMBM, however due to budget constraints and a shortage

of meters the process is taking longer than anticipated.

"The primary objective of this project is to electrify the informal settlements throughout

the Metro, thus eradicating unsafe illegal connections while providing proper and safe

electrical connection to the informal settlements. This electrification program will also

allow the Electricity & Energy directorate to better manage its electrical infrastructure

from overloading, faults due to illegal connections, and provide the basic constitutional

rights to the residents of the Metro. As part of the electrification program, the

community is educated on the problems, cost and dangers of illegal connections and

the risks in allowing illegal connections to the network.”

"We continue to call on our residents to protect our infrastructure, there are two

transformers allocated in this area and it is also their responsibility to look after that

infrastructure. They must report any suspected criminal activity on those transformers

because when the transformers blow up they suffer the most. We have made a

promise to this community that we will come back to electrify more homes but today

we are happy to have seen the whole community jovial and welcoming of the progress

made so far.”

Ends.

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