Cape Town - Nomsa Mapongwana Primary School in Mandela Park, Khayelitsha, is falling behind with their workload due to illegal electricity connections carried out by informal dwellers across the school premises, cutting off their power supply.
Since 2021, the dwellers have been illegally connected to a distribution box providing power to the school. According to deputy principal Loyiso Mkula, the school is operating in complete darkness as none of their lights except in their kitchen and offices work.
For the school to be able to print out necessary documents they have to ask for help at neighbouring schools. The issue has been raised with Eskom for the past two years and whenever they come to disconnect the offending attachment, the dwellers reconnect it in less than two hours of them leaving the area.
“In the past four weeks, things have been difficult for the school. Instead of sharing the power with the school, the dwellers decided to dismantle the school’s connections. For the past two days, our kitchen and one of our offices have somehow been reconnected, enabling us to use an extension so we can plug in our printing machine to deal with the backlog.”
Mkula said the problem was not only about the school functioning, but about the safety of the children as well.
“On the road separating the school and the dwellers there are visible connections and that’s where the kids walk to and from school.
“Close to the school’s fence, the power distribution box is wide open with visible wiring.”
Since the illegal connections, the electricity bill has cost the school more money, taking into consideration the recent price hike, said Mkula.
Western Cape Education Department (WCED) spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said the situation at the school was discouraging. There have been repeated attempts to resolve the issue with Eskom and recently parents of the school marched to the utility to hand over a memorandum.
“It has been an ongoing battle with regards to their electricity supply for the past two years.
“The school took action and installed a solar system, but the price of replacing these batteries, at R15 000 each, is too costly for the school. Eskom did come to the school on Wednesday to address the issue and are looking at installing an electricity box inside the school premises. However, (given) the time frame for such an instalment, they are unlikely to be done by next week and it could take time,” she said.