#Letter: Slow response to power outage

Kim Tabori of Sharula Farm writes:

We reported the loss of power on our farm at 8am on Friday, March 24, and tried calling the control room and many other numbers to obtain a reference number.

No one picked up the phone all of Friday. Councillor Jack Abrahams was in Stanger and popped into the office to ask the municipality to assist. They said they would send someone out.

Technicians did come out on Friday afternoon without notifying us or providing a reference number while our gardener was on site. They attempted to fix it and left, but the power kept tripping as the voltage was running low and could not support multiple power points.

We reported the problem on the farm WhatsApp group throughout the weekend, still with no help arriving.

Only on the Monday after councillor Abrahams contacted senior management did they call us to give us a reference number. We were told they would send out a technician as soon as possible.

No one arrived the whole of Monday, and on Tuesday morning we had to follow up again but at least then had a reference number.

On Tuesday late in the afternoon they finally arrived.

After five days KDM finally fixed the issue and it only took them 45 minutes.

Five days is a long time without electricity.

KDM spokesperson Sipho Mkhize responds:

We will definitely escalate this customer’s experience to the relevant business unit.

We wish to apologise on how this matters seems to have been handled. The normal procedure should have been for the customer to be given a reference number as proof that an issue/complaint had been logged in the first instance.

We will reach out to colleagues at the control room to improve on this so that user experiences are in line with the organisational framework.

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