They either fork out the R72 000 ‘owed’ to Eskom or forever be in the dark.
The Pienaar family who live on a smallholding in Dennydale have been without electricity for six months.
Their predicament meant they had to find alternative means to keep warm, bath and prepare food.
According to Abel Pienaar, the owner of the property, it is a continuous blame game between them and the power utility about who remains responsible for footing the five-figure bill.
“The Eskom people don’t want to hear anything, they’ve even handed us over to their lawyers. This is regardless of the evidence we have that we are not responsible for this bill,” Pienaar told the Herald.
Pienaar, 67, who is a pensioner, claimed their nightmare started in May last year when their home caught fire. Investigations revealed that it was due to a faulty power cable on a transformer outside the family home.
He has since lost his job and income, and his two tenants on the same property had to move. He further claimed that after his home was rebuilt and the power reconnected, the family got the shock of their lives when they were told that the electricity bill amounted to more than R70 000.
“We asked how they could expect of us to pay while the power had been off all the time; I mean, no one was using the electricity when the house was reconstructed,” Pienaar argued.
Since the power was reconnected, they have been receiving inconsistent bills – some ranging between R60 000 and R70 000 – adding that the amounts were simply guessed.
He said even if the power had not been interrupted, his property wouldn’t have run such as high bill.
He said after the back-and-forth blame game with the power utility, they wrote a letter to management, which responded that according to their investigations, there was a property that was using electricity that resulted in such a high bill.
Pienaar disputed this and argued that on average, his property used between R400 and R1 000 worth of electricity, adding that it would’ve taken them much longer than two years to run such an exorbitant bill.
“I’ve lost income because of this; my tenants had to move because they couldn’t live without electricity. I’m a pensioner who relies on a SASSA grant and still has to pay a R2 000 mortgage on the property. How do they expect us to pay such a huge bill?” Pienaar asked.
The family said while paying the bill would be an admission of guilt, they couldn’t carry on living without electricity and would like the community to help.
The Herald has reached out to Eskom regarding the matter and was told that it was being investigated.
EXCLUSIVE
