Naledi refused to vote without electricity: Here’s what we know.

Naledi residents made their voices heard this weekend.

By / / Viral
nailed residents electricity|

On Saturday 18 September 2021, the African National Congress (ANC) president Cyril Ramaphosa arrived in Naledi, Gauteng, to encourage residents to register to vote in the upcoming local government elections.

However, the disgruntled residents took this time to express their anger and pain of living without electricity for weeks.

Naledi residents decided to close off all election sites in the community until the electricity is fixed. This is a reoccurring issue for the residents of the Soweto township that dates back to November 2020 when at the time, according to eNCA, some households had been without electricity for six months.

What is the solution to the electricty crisis in Naledi?

The disruption and action taken by the residents resulted in a response from The City of Johannesburg municipality.

On Saturday, a media statement from The City of Johannesburg was released. It stated that Member of Mayoral Committee (MMC) of the Environmental and Infrastructure Services Department (EISD), Mpho Moerane has assured communities in Naledi that the electricity issue will be given “urgent attention”.

Additionally, the statement acknowledged that protesters have been picketing outside Eskom’s office demanding that their electricity issue is given attention. MMC Moerane also said that there are 40 substations that are damaged in Soweto, and Eskom cannot replace all of them. However, The City of Johannesburg will work with Eskom to ensure that the substations are all replaced, he said.

Social media’s reactions to the action taken by Naledi residents.

The actions taken by the Naledi residents sparked many conversations on Twitter. Here are some of the tweets we picked out.