WATCH | Izinyoka-nyoka and snuif: load-shedding has become unbearable, says DA supporter
Image: Orrin Singh/TimesLIVE
With electrical cables, a clothes iron and stripped wires coiled around her neck, DA supporter Agnus Khumalo strikes a shocking image.
The mother of five was one of hundreds of DA supporters who gathered at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Johannesburg's bustling city centre in preparation for the opposition party's planned march to Luthuli House over South Africa's electricity crisis.
Khumalo, 44, used her style to highlight how people are resorting to stealing electricity in her suburb of Langlaagte in Johannesburg.
“Everything is izinyoka-nyoka [a colloquial term for illegal connections] in this country. This is how I survive. I take the cables and plug it into my iron, my TV ... that's what we have to do. I don't know what the president is doing with the money, we are suffering too much.”
Khumalo was surrounded by a handful of friends spurring her on during the interview, one of whom put her nose to a tiny yellow tub on which a pile of snuif [snuff tobacco] rested.
“It helps with the stress of having to deal with what we go through. We have no electricity and no-one cares about what we have to go through. We have children to send to school, cook food — tell me, what do we do after having requested assistance constantly over the past five years?”
TimesLIVE
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