Ermelo residents gather in protest
Mr Shongwe chose not to address the gathering when invited to do so, saying that he could not comment or act on the grounds of a “faceless letter.”
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Hundreds of people packed the Ella De Bruin Hall in the Ermelo Civic Center this morning to show their dissatisfaction at the power outages implemented on the Msukaligwa Municipalty by Eskom.
Ironically, the hall was extremely dimly lit due to some or other electrical problem.
Residents and businesses in the greater Ermelo area have had to endure power outages twice daily since last Thursday when Eskom introduced the punitive measures on the municipality due to an arrear account of R139m.
A satisfactory payment agreement had not been reached between the power utility and the Msukaligwa Municipality which lead to power outages being implemented daily from 06:00 to 08:00 and 17:00 to 19:30 on weekdays and 08:30 to 11:00 and 15:00 to 17:30 on weekends.
On Wednesday, a notice was issued by Eskom announcing a temporary lifting of the outages after an amount of R28m was paid over by the municipality. This however could not be confirmed although no scheduled outages have occurred since Wednesday afternoon.
The power cuts lead to great discomfort and massive financial losses suffered by all sectors of the community and the business sector.
The large gathering was addressed by Mr Athol Stark on behalf of the community and a memorandum containing numerous questions was handed to the municipal manager, Mr Zwelilhle Shongwe.
The disgruntled community felt it was unfair to be forced to endure such punitive measures when their utility bills had been paid but it was the municipality had failed to honour its debt to Eskom.
Mr Shongwe chose not to address the gathering when invited to do so, saying that he could not comment or act on the grounds of a “faceless letter.”
He then undertook to report back to the community via Ermelo Business Association within seven days.
