After a month in the dark, Gqeberha's Grogro residents again threaten to unleash ‘Plan B’

With the promises of a R7-million temporary solution unfulfilled, and municipal officials ignoring scheduled meetings with community leaders, residents in the informal settlement of Grogro in Gqeberha have again threatened to resort to their “Plan B” after more than a month without electricity.

While there is still no clarity on what this threat entails, previous reports indicated it could lead to widespread disruptions to roads, homes and businesses in Kragga Kamma and the western suburbs of Gqeberha.

At the same time, several residents of the informal settlement have found an alternative power source, running illegal connections from the nearby suburb of Sherwood with hundreds of metres of shoddy electrical cables.

Patience wears thin

After a month of back-and-forth between community leaders and the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, the roughly 1,000 inhabitants of Grogro are losing their patience with officials who made a list of promises, seemingly only to appease the protesting residents when they took to the streets last month.

It has since come to light that providing the settlement with temporary electrical infrastructure, as a delegation led by Deputy Mayor Gary van Niekerk promised weeks ago, would be illegal since it is situated on private land. The city’s Electricity and Energy Directorate has distanced itself from the commitments made to residents.

Read more: Deputy mayor denies promising Nelson Mandela Bay community temporary electricity after protests

On several occasions, the municipality pointed a finger at the property owner, the WJ van Rooyen Trust, saying negotiations to value the land continued, and they could install services only after reaching an agreement.

However, trust representative Dr Albert van Rooyen said he was waiting for municipal officials to come back to him to finalise an agreement.

Protests

In October, sections of the arterial Kragga Kamma Road were blocked off by protesters who burnt debris and demanded services after municipal contractors removed the spider’s web of illegal cables from transformers on the opposite side of the busy road.

The dangerous connections caused fires, injuries and two electrocutions, but residents said they had no choice but to steal electricity as the settlement, which has steadily grown over the past four decades, had never received services.

Despite continuous engagements with the city, the only assistance residents received was in the form of one tap and a handful of portable toilets several years ago.

Read more: After decades in the dark, Gqeberha informal settlement is promised R7m electricity lifeline

After Van Niekerk denied promising that the settlement would receive temporary electricity infrastructure, and a group of officials failed to honour a scheduled meeting with the community, their leadership said tempers were running high.

“This is not the first time they failed to attend a meeting,” said residents’ representative Zukile Futa.

“Our protests came after they failed to attend a scheduled meeting with us at their own offices. Then, to get us to stop protesting, they promised us temporary power, daily updates on the progress and weekly in-person meetings.

‘They left us hanging’

“Now, a month after failing to honour their commitments, we were supposed to meet with their officials again [last Thursday], and they never came back to us with a time, or to cancel. They just left us hanging.”

Futa said after meeting with their community, they planned “to take action” on Wednesday. He did not specify what it would entail, but intimated that they could either march to the municipal offices or take to the streets again until city officials agreed to meet with them in person.

Rather than return to the transformers on Kragga Kamma, where their stand-off with the municipality began, community members ran long lengths of repurposed electrical cables to the adjacent suburb of Sherwood.

One such cable was connected directly to the underground electrical cable of an abandoned and derelict home in Birkenhead Crescent, which has been a headache for neighbours for several years.

“First, vagrants moved into the house. Then they started stripping it piece by piece. Last week, our power went out for several hours after an illegal connection running to Grogro tripped the whole street’s power,” said Birkenhead Crescent resident Candice Meyer.

She said other neighbours found cables running from the abandoned property’s electrical box, through the broken boundary wall at the back of the yard, and towards the informal settlement.

“When they tugged at the cable, there was a moerse spark and poof, our power was out. Luckily, the municipality came back to reconnect us quickly,” said Meyer.

Daily Maverick visited the site last week and saw a network of cables, riddled with dangerous and exposed connections, running through the tall grass and bushes between Sherwood and Grogro.

A Grogro resident, who refused to give his name, was walking along the wire in the bushes, checking if all the connections were intact.

“What do these people expect? We need power. Our children need to eat, they need to study for exams. How can they just leave us without electricity?” said the resident.

Municipal response

Municipal spokesperson Sithembiso Soyaya said the matter was under investigation.

“The municipality has dispatched a team to the area to investigate reports that Grogro residents may have reconnected illegal electricity or made new illegal connections on the Sherwood side. We are gathering verified information on the ground before making any final determinations.

“If these allegations are confirmed, the municipality will strongly condemn such actions. Illegal connections are dangerous, unlawful, and put the lives of residents — including children — as well as municipal staff at serious risk. They also compromise the stability of the broader electricity network.”

Soyaya said the municipality would provide a full report after its teams had concluded their investigation.

‘Plan B’

Community leader Futa said they were not aware of the illegal electricity connections from Sherwood.

Residents said they were tired of the municipality’s “empty promises” and their own leadership’s “lack of decisive action”.

“When we were toyi-toying on Kragga Kamma, we told the deputy mayor there was a plan B if they did not bring us electricity.

“Maybe they lied about their promises, but we were not lying. There is a plan B, and they are very close to finding out what exactly plan B is,” said a resident, who wanted to remain anonymous.

In October, during the initial protest action, intelligence reports from private security operatives on the ground indicated that Plan B included widespread disruptions of roads and damage to crucial electricity infrastructure in the areas surrounding Grogro. DM