Bethal residents are tired of load shedding, draw up a petition
While residents in several other towns in the Govan Mbeki Municipality have not experienced load shedding in weeks, Bethal residents have to sit without electricity for up to eight hours per day.
Bethal residents are angry and tired of being without electricity.
Ms Maryke Claassen, a local resident, drew up a petition which was signed by more than 1000 people within a few hours.
“As if it is not enough that we are on lockdown, lost our jobs and are not receiving an income, we have to sit with an extremely bad municipality that is punishing us with unlawful load shedding,” said a resident.
The petition is addressed to the Office of the President, the Department of Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), Eskom and the local Govan Mbeki Municipality (GMM).
It urges the relevant parties to suspend the constant load shedding that is being enforced in the area.
The petition has a section where residents can voice their frustrations.
“We have had more than 59 power outages since 27 March at Tsibitso Sibanyoni Street and my appliances and fridges are beginning to break down,” said Mr Mark Middlebrook, as motivation for supporting the petition.
“I’m fed-up with the electricity being gone for more than eight hours. It is wasting our food and damaging our appliances. When it (the electricity) comes back on, it takes maybe three to four tries before it is restored,” added Mr Thabile Dladla.
Ms Claassen said GMM claims the reason for the power interruptions is that the protection settings of the Eskom transformers have been set to the maximum demand of the municipal area.
So the transformers of Eskom will trip if the municipality exceed the demand for which they applied and paid.
Areas go without power for hours on end – sometimes for days, because the dilapidated infrastructure cannot handle the constant power surges when power is returned.
Last week some residents were without power for four days while transformers had to be replaced.
“I will see how many signatures we receive by next week and then send it to all the relatives stakeholders,” said Ms Claassen.
“Hopefully we can get some normality back into our lives.
“People have to work from home and children need to do online learning during this lockdown period and the power outages are making it impossible. Residents are beyond fed-up.”
Residents can sign the petition at https://www.change.org/PowerforBethal
