Pretoria's Refilwe community laments nine year struggle for electricity

JOHANNESBURG - A Pretoria community said it was tired of begging the City of Tshwane for service delivery as households in the township have been without electricity for nine years. 

Households in parts of Refilwe, far east of Pretoria, have pleaded with the ever-changing political leaders in the capital to prioritise power issues in the area.

But residents there said their concerns had fallen on deaf ears.

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Some Refilwe residents said their moral compass stopped them from illegally connecting their homes to electricity, but other community members said the City of Tshwane had cornered them into cheating the system in order to get access to power.

Community leader, Naniki Khanya, said in the last nine years, she's never been able to store meat and other food products in her fridge.

"Normally, I can tell you that we buy meat to eat today and tomorrow we do the very same thing. So I can tell you that the alternative is to eat fish."

But she added that now that the country was approaching the elections, she expected to see political parties campaigning using their daily struggles.