{"id":108955,"date":"2026-02-17T10:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/?p=108955"},"modified":"2026-02-17T10:58:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:58:40","slug":"afriforum-launches-investigation-after-electrocution-of-9-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/afriforum-launches-investigation-after-electrocution-of-9-year-old\/","title":{"rendered":"AfriForum launches investigation after electrocution of 9-year-old"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>AfriForum\u2019s Bothaville Branch and Neighbourhood Watch will launch an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the recent death of a 9-year-old boy in Bothaville. The boy was electrocuted to death on Saturday 7 February, after allegedly touching a stay wire on an electric pole in the town.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Alta Pretorius, AfriForum\u2019s Regional Coordinator for the Mooi River region, this incident is allegedly the second such death in Bothaville. A cow was also reportedly electrocuted to death in the town recently after it touched an anchor pole. However, the Municipality tried to refute these allegations and argued that the animal died after being struck by lightning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The purpose of stay wires is to support power poles. Although stay wires are not supposed to carry power, various defects in the structure can cause them to become power-bearing and therefore pose serious risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAt this stage it appears that this wire was indeed faulty and led to last week\u2019s tragic death. There are clearly serious problems with Bothaville\u2019s power grid, and an urgent investigation into the extent of this must be conducted to help prevent further loss of life. Two people have already paid with their lives for the negligence of the Nala Local Municipality. Such events must not happen again. Therefore, the municipality must now be held accountable,\u201d explains Pretorius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to a report of the Select Committee on Cooperative Governance and Public Administration\u2019s visit to the Municipality released in October last year, the Nala Municipality is experiencing serious problems with, among others, power supply and infrastructure maintenance. The municipality faces problems with frequent power outages and delays in repairing related faults, which can sometimes take up to six days. Moreover, the extent of the deterioration in the municipality is so serious that the committee stated that it \u201cis of the opinion that the state of service delivery and infrastructure in Nala Local Municipality violates the human rights of the community [&#8230;] and the strategic objective of local government in relation to the provision of service delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AfriForum\u2019s Bothaville Branch and Neighbourhood Watch will launch an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the recent death of a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":108958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[11177,11162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-affairs-media-statements","category-media-statements"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":11177,"label":"Community Affairs Media statements"},{"value":11162,"label":"Media statements"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Bothaville-skok_cover_ENG-1024x595.jpg",1024,595,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"AfriForum","author_link":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/author\/ilze-nieuwoudtafriforum-co-za\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":11177,"name":"Community Affairs Media statements","slug":"community-affairs-media-statements","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":11177,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":11162,"count":592,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":11177,"category_count":592,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Community Affairs Media statements","category_nicename":"community-affairs-media-statements","category_parent":11162},{"term_id":11162,"name":"Media statements","slug":"media-statements","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":11162,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":2753,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":11162,"category_count":2753,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Media statements","category_nicename":"media-statements","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108960,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108955\/revisions\/108960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}