Stalwart helped to bring electricity to her village
LATE Struggle stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is credited for bringing light and joy to her birthplace Mbhongweni and surrounding villages when she used her political power to ensure they were quickly connected to the electricity grid.
Delighted Mbhongweni villagers this week told Independent Media that it was thanks to her intervention that parts of the village and its neighbouring areas now have electricity. She moved in quickly and promised villagers improved service delivery. Madikizela-Mandela summoned residents to a field in Mbhongweni, and promised even more improvements to service delivery. She slaughtered a cow, bought sport kits for the Mbhongweni Primary School, where she started her schooling in the late 1930s.
One villager recalled her telling her relatives: “Yekani lento niyenzayo, ndizonifakela umbane (Stop what you are doing, I will ensure that you have electricity)”.
“In no time, they started connecting her home, schools, the clinic and the nurse’ home,” said a happy Malixole Madikizela, who lives on a shack at his late parents’ homestead in Mbhongweni.
Madikizela-Mandela apparently also promised villagers a tarred road connecting them to Bizana, the small town that serves as the commercial hub for the surrounding villages.
Loads of concrete are being laid in one of the two gravel roads linking Mbhongweni and its neighbouring villages to Bizana, drastically cutting daily commuting times.
The municipality has promised that once the projects that are under implementation are completed the municipality will be left with a backlog figure of approximately 6 736 households or 14% of the households in the municipality with no electricity.
In areas where the electricity will not be provided soon the municipality is providing solar system for these areas through assistance from the Department of Energy.
About R25 million was approved as the Integrated National Electrification Programme allocation for 2016/17 while the municipality also received an amount of R40.4 m from the Development Bank of Southern Africa.