SEDIBENG. – The Democratic Alliance (DA) Emfuleni North Constituency Head and Member of the Provincial Legislature (MPL) Kingsol Chabalala has expressed his disappointment at the National Council Of Provinces (NCOP) for not giving feedback on a petition that was signed by thousands of residents from Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) amid the electricity crisis.
The petition was welcomed by residents who live in areas where there are constant blackouts. Recently, areas such as Rus-Ter-Vaal and Roshnee have been affected by power outages that sometimes last for days. Chabalala says the crisis is far from being over.
“Emfuleni residents’ electricity crisis is far from over because the DA in Emfuleni has not yet received any feedback from the petition handed over to the NCOP seven months ago.
“The petition seeks to address Eskom’s failure to replace broken and faulty transformers in areas where they supply electricity in Emfuleni. Some of these areas have been without electricity for more than five years
“Since handing over the petition to the NCOP, the DA has not received any acknowledgement letter or any feedback on the progress made on this petition.
“Emfuleni residents and businesses are suffering because of this prolonged electricity crisis, yet there are no urgent interventions from the government and NCOP to resolve this matter,” He says.
Chabalala states that the DA will be engaging with its representatives in the NCOP to ensure that this petition is dealt with as a matter of urgency.
“Furthermore, the petition challenges Eskom and NCOP representatives to conduct an oversight inspection in Emfuleni to engage with residents and understand how this electricity crisis affects their daily lives.”
During an NCOP Plenary meeting last year, Chabalala told Deputy President David Mabuza about the slow replacement and fixing of transformers ELM, saying that the turnaround time was not effective as some areas are left without electricity for years.
Chabalala asked Mabuza commit to instructing Eskom to change their turnaround time to at least seven days. In response, Mabuza said that although he agreed, the continued damage to Eskom’s infrastructure is one of the factors which hinders Eskom from replacing transformers and other infrastructure on time.
