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Illegal power connections keep the lights on in Ditsobotla

Residents of Shukran, a suburb in Lichtenburg where homes now derive power from lines meant to distribute energy across large distances, said they feared for their lives should anything go wrong during a power surge from the supply.

Isaac Mahlangu Senior reporter

When an electrical mini substation blew in February, leaving residents of a suburb in Lichtenburg, North West, without power for four days, their embattled local municipality opted for the unconventional by linking their homes with power directly from overhead power lines.

Such is the state of collapse of services in the Ditsobotla local municipality in in the province that municipal electricians were forced to bypass the burnt mini substation supplying electricity to local lines by connecting them directly to transmission lines...

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