Living in the darkness of a broken city

Mail & Guardian

20-06-2025

(Graphic: John McCann/M&G)
The electricity cable to my house has broken. I know this because four weeks after the power switched off in the last week of April, a truck visited and assessed the cable. They came on the day that my partner called a radio station to complain about living in prolonged darkness. We were told that the cable had broken at the base of the street pole. Fortunately for everyone, they would not need to dig up the road even as they warned that the cable to the house is old and will need to be replaced at some point.
They repaired the break in the cable, but the lights stayed off because there was something wrong with the meter. They temporarily bypassed the meter and left us with a caution; the power was now on the neutral cable and posed some risk. Instead of darkness, we chose the power we were given. It lasted a week. I write this piece five days into the darkness, on the coldest week of the year so far.
Another call was logged with City Power. Over the past six weeks many calls have been made. The call centre agents eventually respond by picking up the phone and then ignoring us while they continue their conversations. On their system, they count the number of calls received but to them, this is a game. In a landscape of so much unemployment, for them, work is a plaything. When we eventually escalate to a supervisor, promises are made.
But we languish in the dark. Our municipal account has arrived. It is just over R11 000. While the bill has arrived, the power has not. Before the power switched off in the week of Freedom Day, for several weeks, the electricity voltage had been low and only some appliances and lights worked. Touching some taps and shower knobs sent a jolt of shock through the body. And then everything went dark.
We are firmly middle class in my household. We have it better than most residents of this city. We shower at the gym, we cook on a gas plate stove, and we charge our computers and devices at work. We live. But the middle-class trappings and security systems that we need to protect ourselves from the inequality of this city are gone. We cannot use the electrical security system, the gate battery has died, and there are no outside perimeter lights. In the darkness of this broken city, we are sitting ducks.
We are black and we are not suffering from a native nostalgia for the apartheid city of the past. But it was not always like this. We would know because we have lived in our house for 15 years. Like everyone, we experienced the blackouts of load-shedding. Then, our suffering was shared. Now, as the lone house without power, no one knows our fate.
We cannot log it with EskomSePush or the city's X account. Without the pressure of an entire neighbourhood, our calls can be ignored. The City Power trucks that drive by the neighbourhood know us. We sometimes stop them and direct them to the house. We are prepared to entertain their requests for cold drinks — code to compensate them for their paid work. Corruption is in the marrow of this city.
In previous years, when technicians have come for repairs on the problematic electric pole, they have asked us for money to buy electrical parts because these have supposedly run out at the warehouse. Waiting for stock means there may be delays which could take weeks or months. So, we give them what they ask for. They buy the parts and fix the problem. But because this is generally only patchwork, the problem often reemerges. The next person criticises the work of the previous technician. We pay again.
This is the illicit economy of a failing city of ageing infrastructure and city officials that have lost their hold over the city they supposedly manage. As residents that know nothing about electrical parts, we are at the mercy of officials who may or may not be corrupt. One thing is apparent though; the city's residents are rendered vulnerable by a city that pretends to know what it is doing but is failing spectacularly.
When I call my mother in Lusikisiki, she is empathetic. We share notes about when to cook all the meat in the fridge before it spoils. She often has no electricity because the wind is sometimes too strong for the lightweight Eskom infrastructure in the village. Or a donkey might have rubbed itself against the electric pole. In the villages, power outages can take weeks to resolve. We wrongly expect this because we have come to accept that rural life is cheap and unimportant.
But it is jarring when this becomes the norm in the economic heart of the country where we pay inflated municipal rates.
The collapse of Johannesburg is in full swing. The ruin of the central business district has been self-evident for a while now. The gas explosion of Lilian Ngoyi Street might be read as the final confirmation of a known truth. The lethargic repairs tell us all we need to know about the city's capabilities. Townships have been held in place by the sheer ingenuity of their residents. They navigate sink holes and sewage leaks. They no longer bother with City Power. They climb the poles and connect themselves. To fix a common problem, they conduct a collection and pay the cold drink fee of a rogue city employee.
The middle-class suburbs have been the last line of defence to a decent life. But in the tree-lined streets, the ominous signs of decay are here too. Potholes poke holes into the middle-class bubble. If residents do not fix pavements, kerbs and street walks, they degenerate because the city will not repair anything now. All this at our own cost. I know this from firsthand experience. When flood waters washed away the pavement outside my yard, I repaired it at the cost of R20 000 after a year of reporting it to the councillor.
Long lines periodically emerge when water runs out of many areas of the city. At the same time, water and sewage pipe bursts release water and faecal matter which run down Louis Botha Avenue unchecked. Shit splatters in the wake of the roaring traffic. Breathe in the droplets at your risk, dear resident.
The story is the same: ageing city infrastructure, but there is no end date given for when it will be changed. Water tanks poke over people's walls as residents take on the role of municipalities. Those who can't afford private water wait for water tankers. Solar panels are everywhere. The cost of living here has ballooned in the last decade.
The city is not just fraying at the edges. It is broken.
What is to be done? Our mayoral office has been a revolving door of failures. I don't believe a change in those who don mayoral chains is the solution. The recycling of a former mayor of Cape Town with colonial longings does not excite me. Sitting in this dark place, I don't know what is to be done. There are people that are paid to vision and implement plans. Chief executive officers, city managers and committees with dizzying salaries.
My immediate need is simpler than a vision or solution. All I really want is reliable electricity. I pay the bills, now could I have some power please?
Hugo ka Canham is a writer and professor at Unisa and the author of
Riotous Deathscapes
. He writes in his personal capacity.