Lentswe, Klerksdorp - For over a month, a business in Uraniaville has been operating in near-total darkness, with nothing except promises from the Matlosana Municipality still keeping their doors open. The ordeal for business owner Aldurette Booysen began on September 29. “Since the power cables were stolen here, we have been without electricity.” For 36 days, what followed has been a case study in frustration. Booysen describes a futile cycle of communication: “After many reports, WhatsApp messages, phone calls, and conversations... only a few poles, holes on our property, and a piece of cable have shown up. Not a person in sight.”
When she persists, the official response is a dismissive dead end: “The answers from the Electrical department are just ‘talk to the supervisor or I will contact you back’. Which never happens.”
This problem has left her business and the people on her property in Vanadium Street dangerously exposed. With the security system down, the business (Go Big Steel) is being plundered, forcing her to cover costs for damages like walls being kicked in. The human cost is just as severe.
Residents on the property have had all their food rot and must drive every night just to charge their phones, incurring massive expenses for petrol and food while living in a state of compromised safety.
Every attempt to mitigate the crisis comes directly out of her pocket: an expensive generator to keep production from halting completely, and extra solar lights to fend off criminals who use the overgrown municipal land to hide.
The official explanation for this paralysis is as infuriating as it is predictable: there is allegedly no money for stock to replace the stolen 100 meters of cable. This excuse is impossible for residents to accept when they see the municipality’s history of financial mismanagement.
Booysen’s question cuts to the heart of this collapsed trust: “Where is the money?” The ultimate insult is the bill that will inevitably arrive. As she bitterly concludes, at the end of the month, the electricity bill must be paid “with a smile, and to say thank you for nothing.”
