Local residents take to the streets for electricity

Residents in Ext 5 and other parts of Kaalfontein are claiming that Eskom employees are corrupt as they allegedly demand money from the poor to carry out their services.

On 8 and 9 July, residents took to the streets in protest, blocking Archerfish Drive with tree branches, concrete water drainage pipes, and rocks so that cars would not use the main road. Community members claimed that they had been without electricity for more than three weeks and demanded that something must be done.

Buyiswa Motlamme, who lives in Ext 5, said that when her meter box stopped working a while back, Eskom engineers told her it was not registered, even though she bought the box from them.

“I then asked the Eskom employee to help me register my meter box but instead, he asked me for R1 800 and then later on again requested that I give him R1 400 more to continue with the registration.

“Time went by without the man showing his face. I then saw him on duty at another house in the area after some weeks. I approached him to ask when he would be coming to fix my meter problem. He told me he would pay me back and then disappeared without paying me back my money.

“Now my box is blocked, the same box I bought from Eskom employees reflects on my top-up vouchers that it is from Venda.”

Motlamme added that Eskom should start enforcing the law with their own people because they are the ones who have been selling ‘buy one get one free’ electricity to them, including stolen meter boxes and connecting illegally because they are after their money. “We are forced to buy the fake electricity vouchers since some of us do not work, it allows us to save the little money we have.”

Rosina Selomo, who is also a resident in Ext 5, said that after being without electricity since 14 June and reporting to Eskom to come fix their transformer, Eskom told them their area was a red zone, which they did not know what it meant. “They went as far as telling us that the same power transformer we were reporting to them does not belong to us, it belongs to Ivory Park.

“Everyone in the community was shocked to hear that because Eskom is the one who put the transformer there in the first place.”

The power company’s spokesperson Dikatso Mothae later responded in a press release saying that Eskom is experiencing an increasing number of repeated equipment failures in some areas, especially, within Gauteng primarily due to illegal connections which lead to overloading, resulting in failure of transformers and mini-substations. “Therefore, Eskom has taken a decision that it will not be restoring power to areas that have had repeated failures due to illegal connections, meter tampering and bypassing.

“Eskom will only restore supply to legal and paying customers in the areas, on condition that the community allows safe access to Eskom staff to conduct audits and remove illegal connections. If we do not conduct the audits, we run the risk of continued failures without dealing with the root cause.”

Group executive for distribution Monde Bala said they will continue to engage with councillors in all affected areas to deal adequately with these issues. “Furthermore, Eskom would like to affirm its commitment to collaborate and engage with various communities to find solutions so that we can resume with our services.

“I thank and applaud paying customers for their continued commitment to paying for the services that they use. We appeal to communities to report illegal connections and meter tampering including when Eskom employees are involved. The Eskom crime line number is 0800 11 27 22.”

Related article:

https://www.citizen.co.za/midrand-reporter/219314/kaalfontein-community-protest-no-power-three-weeks/