Household with renting rooms overload and cause transformer to trip

Residents of sections C1 and C2 in ward 67 Mamelodi West clashed over electricity cuts.

The residents claim that homeowners in Nkosi Street, in C2 are shack-farming, renting out their backyard rooms in the backyard above the allocated quota of people per household.

They claimed homeowners in Nkosi Street are letting between 15 and 30 people per room and that these rooms were illegally built on municipal land.

They say as a consequence the electricity transformer in the area overloads and trips regularly in the afternoons resulting in prolonged outages, affecting more than 100 houses in C1 from Sebothoma and Madziba to Zungu streets.

Resident, Andries Sibanyoni said this has been an ongoing problem for more than seven years and that they have tried all forms of consultation with the landlords to reduce their electricity consumption to no avail.

“We have tried everything in our power, signed a petition and consulted with our councillor about the issue.

“We are badly affected and Tshwane should demolish these rooms and cut off all illegal electricity connections.”

Another resident Mzwandile Mtshelwane said his electric appliances were damaged because of the power surges.

He said the situation has worsened now that everyone uses more power in winter.

“These shack farmers have illegally occupied land to run a business of renting rooms which in turn affects us who are paying municipal services while they have illegally connected electricity causing continued power cuts,” said Mtshelwane.

Community members held several meetings with the landlords to find a solution but claimed the shack farmers were uncooperative.

Mtshwelwane said the main transformer was tampered with and had to be replaced.

“They keep increasing their renting rooms by building new structures.”

The police were called to intervene but they could not help since the land belonged to the metro.

John Thwala said his children depended on electricity to do their school work.

He suggested that the shack farmers should have their own transformer and be removed from the existing one.

“We are badly affected by these power outages. When we have load-shedding and the lights come back on, we continue sitting in the dark,” said Thwala.

Recently, a local family struggled to prepare for a funeral of a loved one because of a power outage and had to hire a generator.

A group of residents decided to take matters into their own hands and cut off the electricity to the rooms.

One of the shack farmers opened a harassment case against them.

However, the court ruled in its favour after it found the complainant had misled it.

Sibanyoni said making matters worse was that most of the tenants are illegal foreigners, whom he also accused of littering.

“We have elderly people who have chronic diseases while others depend on oxygen cylinders to breathe,” he said.

The residents claimed the shack farmers were guilty of tax evasion, withholding such information from the municipality.

Rekord was still waiting for a response from the metro at the time of going to press.

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