Ulundi Municipality Cuts Illegal Electricity Connections As Power Stealing Adds R100m Debt to Eskom

• A municipality in KwaZulu-Natal is taking action to stem its growing R100 million debt to Eskom
• The Ulundi Local Municipality said that illegal connections to the electricity grid are making it hard for it to pay the power utility
• Cutting illegal connections is a growing trend across South Africa with Johannesburg City Power following suit

KWAZULU-NATAL - The Ulundi Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal has taken to disconnect illegal connections to electricity in a bid to tackle the R100 million debt it owes Eskom.

The municipality said that the fact that residents were stealing power was making it hard for it to collect revenue and pay the embattled power utility, thereby increasing the municipality's debt.

Ulundi Municipality Mayor Wilson Ntshangase along with Deputy Mayor Thembelihle Gaba Madela, speaker Senzosenkosi Buthelezi and other councillors have vowed to continue cutting illegal connections until the problem is rooted out.

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According to TimesLIVE, the Ulundi Municipality went to several houses last week and out of the six houses visited, five had illegally connected themselves to the electricity grid.

Mayor Ntshangase warned that the municipality, which is fed up with power stealing, will not hesitate to switch off residents who are illegally connected.

Johannesburg City Power cuts illegal connections in Alexandra

Johannesburg City Power has also embarked on a mission to curb illegal electricity connections. The utility's revenue collection campaign started on January 17 in the Alexandra township.

EWN reported that City Power aimed to get back R363 million owed to the Alexandra Service Delivery Centre by cutting illegal connections to businesses like taverns and salons.

South Africans react to Ulundi Municipality cutting illegal connections

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Citizens weighed in on the municipality cutting off illegal connections on social media.

Below are some comments:

@GoitseMarake praised:

"That's the right start. Nothing is for free and people continue to complain about power outages. Money is needed to do maintenance."

@Chad_wutang claimed:

"That's a BIG LIE. How long has the municipality known about these illegal connections and done nothing? What makes you think they will do something now?"

@mbindwane said:

"A slow revolt will come from the free electricity promises."

@TheRealLordoft1 commented:

"We need elections more often."

Mzansi finally sees man switching off power during loadshedding, TikTok with 3.5m views has peeps up in arms

In a related story, Briefly News reported that a video of how power cuts are initiated in North West, Rustenburg, amused people. Loadshedding in South Africa continues at full force and online users got a bit of closure by seeing how it all works.

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TikTokker @mandisidyantyi works at a power station and he showed people that he is responsible for switching off electricity. The video completely took South African online users as it got millions of views.

A video posted on TikTok by @mandisidyantyi shows the man who works at Rustenburg municipality managing 11 000 volts of electricity. In the video, the man switches off some of the power units, which caused a reaction among netizens as it got 3.5 million views and 122 000 likes.

Source: Briefly News