LIMPOPO – Angry residents from Siyandhani village have called on Eskom to immediately stop the ongoing implementation of load reduction in their area, accusing the power utility of unfairly targeting their community while neglecting to apply the same measures in other places.

According to one of the community leaders protesting at the Eskom offices on Monday, Sam Mathebula, residents had already written to Eskom, appealing for an end to the practice which they say has crippled their daily lives.

In the letter, they also offered to assist Eskom in identifying households engaged in illegal electricity connections or not purchasing power legitimately; an effort to ensure that innocent, paying members of the community are not penalised for the actions of a few.

“We wrote them a letter recently demanding that they stop load reduction in our village,” he said. “We even volunteered to help them check households that were not buying their electricity so that they don’t punish the whole community because of a few individuals, but they didn’t come.”

Frustrated by the lack of response, the residents took their grievances directly to Eskom’s local offices last week, demanding answers.

“We came last week to demand a response regarding the letter, but they didn’t answer us. That’s why today we’re here; to make sure no one works in their offices until we get our answers,” he said, referring to a protest that disrupted operations at Eskom’s offices.

The residents claim that their community has been subjected to load reduction for an extended period, far longer than other areas that only recently experienced it and have since been exempted.

“What even bothers us more is that we’ve been under load reduction for a long time, yet others who only started experiencing it two months ago are already free from it. Why is this load reduction revolving around us and not affecting other communities as much?” he questioned.

The community says they are tired and need a break. Their patience, he warned, is wearing thin.

“If Eskom continues to ignore our pleas, we might be forced to take drastic steps that Eskom won’t like.”

In response to community grievances, Eskom’s customer relations manager for the Mopani area, Brian Ndubane, wrote a letter to clarify the utility’s stance on load reduction.

According to him, “Load reduction is not a phenomenon unique to Siyandhani village, but a measure implemented by Eskom in various areas across South Africa where the electricity network is under severe strain.”

Ndubane explained that load reduction is carried out to “prevent damage to infrastructure due to overloading in certain areas, particularly those with high levels of illegal connections and electricity theft.”

He warned that when electricity supply demand exceeds the capacity of local transformers and substations, it can lead to equipment failure, including transformer explosions and fires, events that may result in prolonged power outages in the affected areas.

“Secondly, it’s to protect human lives,” he added. “Overloaded transformers can be extremely dangerous and can result in explosions. Load reduction is implemented as a last resort to mitigate these risks and ensure public safety.”

Ndubane also clarified that the load reduction periods between 05:00 and 09:00 and again between 17:00 and 22:00 are due to the high electricity demand during these peak hours, which significantly increases the risk of network overloading.

Despite these explanations, he indicated that Eskom is open to further dialogue and has requested a meeting with the local ward councillor between July 2 and 3 to discuss the matter in more detail.

“The ward councillor can arrange a venue for the meeting at either the tribal offices or the municipal offices,” he concluded, adding that Eskom plans to introduce smart meters as a long-term solution to both load reduction and electricity theft, to resolve the issue once and for all.