Eskom employees held hostage by Morula View residents demanding electricity
"Angry residents who were at the scene demanded that no one be allowed to leave the premises until their demands are resolved."
Eskom has condemned the behaviour of residents from Morula View in Mabopane after they held its employees hostage on Monday evening.
Eskom spokesperson Tumi Mashishi said nine employees were held hostage by community members who were demanding a mini-substation replacement in their area.
Mashishi said none of the employees was injured and they were rescued by law enforcement agencies.
“Eskom has experienced high incidents of equipment failure due to the network being overloaded through illegal connections, unauthorised operations on the network, meter bypasses and tampering and infrastructure vandalism.
“Eskom is currently dealing with a shortage of mini-substations that led to delays in the replacement of this equipment. The Morula View community was unfortunately affected by the delays.”
A resident from the area, Albert Mogati, said they have been without electricity since August and despite their numerous attempts to engage Eskom employees, nothing was done.
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Mogati said angry residents who were at the scene demanded that no one was allowed to leave the premises until their demands were resolved.
“A transformer was stolen in August and it has not been easy for residents not to have electricity for this long. Some people have to work from home but they cannot do that because they do not have electricity.
“Children cannot access Wi-Fi or use their laptops for school assignments because we do not have electricity. The reason we did not want to leave was that they said they will only be able to give us a transformer on November 30.”
Mogati said not having electricity has hit his family’s finances badly.
“We are now forced to buy and cook because if we buy in bulk, the food gets spoiled. This has affected us a lot financially as a family.”
Mashishi said Eskom is working with manufacturers for a faster turnaround time so that they can replace the failed equipment and restore supply to their paying customers.
“We condemn this hostage incident as we believe that issues can be resolved without threatening the lives of our employees.
“We urge communities to be patient with us as we work on resolving the mini-substation shortages. We also implore them to refrain from violent and criminal acts such as holding our staff hostage.”
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