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Mfuleni residents want power now

The World Cup in Cape Town could be disrupted by disgruntled Mfuleni residents who are threatening to camp outside the stadium if they do not get electricity by this Friday.

About 50 disgruntled residents from Bardale community, near Mfuleni, chanted songs of disappointment in a protest outside the city administration's headquarters, saying they had lived for the past six months without electricity in their houses.

"There is no life there (Mfuleni). It's like we live in a cave. It looks as though we are outsiders who don't belong to South Africa," Wilfred Ngqongqo, a 44-year-old father of three, said.

He said it was risky for him to use paraffin or candles as alternatives as that could set the house on fire.

Residents claimed that the authorities had promised to supply them with electricity before the start of the World Cup.

Some held placards reading: "Six months without electricity is enough", and "We are going to sleep at the Cape Town stadium on Friday".

"We want to watch the World Cup but we don't have electricity. We are not happy at all. The city should make a plan for us," Vuyokazi Ngabi, a mother of three, said.

The protesters were set to hand over a memorandum of their grievances to Premier Helen Zille and Mayor Dan Plato.

The authorities had not commented on the matter by the time of going to print.

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