Eskom woes in Sunninghill become major issue for councillor
It seems like frustration has reached its boiling point in Sunninghill as a resident has suggested drastic action against their councillor, demanding change amid relentless Eskom power outages.
Eskom is always apologising for power outages in Sunninghill and that is rubbing the councillor of ward 93 Vino Reddy up the wrong way.
He said for four days, the residents have been in darkness and they cannot even get an estimated time of restoration (ETR) from the power utility.
“Eskom communication in this matter has been sparse and non-committal. For the fourth day in a row, we cannot get an ETR. While I understand they have infrastructure issues, Eskom has a responsibility to their customers to communicate with them to tell the residents what the problems are and what challenges Eskom faces in dealing with these issues”.
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Reddy is feeling frustrated because of endless complaints from residents and when he escalates the matter to the power utility, he says he met with silence.
“The onus for most if not all communication has fallen on the councillor, me. I am being held responsible for the failures or shortcomings of Eskom. Residents must understand that whilst I endeavour to give information, I rely on Eskom for the information.”
He said what makes matters even worse is that there is a resident who is calling for his head.
“Residents are so frustrated with the ongoing problems with Eskom that I’m being blamed for doing nothing and not providing feedback so much so that a resident has started a petition to get me removed as councillor. Unfortunately, Eskom is not a city-owned entity and is not answerable to councillors.”
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Reddy said the power situation in Sunninghill is untenable as they have had ongoing power outages since the beginning of February. He said appliances are failing due to power surges but more importantly food is going off with many residents throwing away thousands of rands worth of food.
“As bad as the economy is, and as much as I understand Eskom doesn’t have money for infrastructural upgrades the residents cannot continue to be made to pay for Eskom’s failures. I, like the residents, can no longer contend with apologies that are so frequent that they have become meaningless. We want answers with tangible solutions which can be measured. We ask but the moment power is restored, Eskom forgets to respond.
“Most recently I invited Eskom to attend the ward service delivery meeting. The invitation was accepted, but no representative attended. This invitation was to give a face to Eskom and afford residents the opportunity to ask Eskom pertinent questions, such as, what causes the problems that result in them losing power so frequently?”
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Eskom has issued an apology to the residents of Sunninghill for their struggle to provide power for weeks on social media.
“We understand the frustration and inconvenience these outages have caused, and we appreciate your patience during this time. Our teams have been working diligently to restore supply as quickly as possible whenever outages occur. We want to assure you that we are investigating the root causes of these disruptions and exploring solutions to reduce their frequency.
“While technical faults may still arise from time to time, we are committed to implementing a lasting resolution to improve reliability. We appreciate your understanding and patience as we work to resolve this issue.”
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