Marburg residents left in dark… with no answers
With the financial strain that Covid-19 has left on many, people have resorted to running small businesses from their homes in an attempt to make ends meet.
South Coast residents say that they have become all too familiar with inefficient service delivery from the various service facilities.
There has been a rapid occurrence of power outages throughout the South Coast, especially in areas such as Shelly Beach, Ramsgate and Marburg.
Disgruntled residents of Marburg contacted the Herald, explaining that they are tired of bearing the brunt of Eskom’s negligence.
A Herald reporter contacted Eskom about the issue.
The utility responded, saying: “This seems to be an unplanned outage and we cannot say when the power will be back.”
With the financial strain that Covid-19 has left on many, people have resorted to running small businesses from their homes in an attempt to make ends meet.
Some residents sell food or baked goods while others have been working remotely from home, and this has been their only source of income for the past few months.
However, with no electricity for close to 24 hours on end, their food is getting spoilt and those who use laptops or computers to work have no means of recharging them.
As a result, it has left residents furious and for many, no daily income.
“Is Eskom going to compensate me for all the food in my fridge that has gone off? I do not have the money to go and replace my perishables,” said Rani Naicker, an upset pensioner.
Areas in Marburg such as Extension 14 and Wimpey Crescent had experienced power outages lasting almost the entire day.
According to residents, the power went off on January 28 for the whole day and again on January 29 after which it only came back on around 10pm for a few hours.
“The maps and blueprints that the contractors are provided with do not seem to be accurate. They seem to be digging at the wrong points and end up cutting the wrong cable and in some places have even hit water pipes,” said a resident.
Meanwhile on February 4 in Ocean View Road, Marburg electricity was cut off at 11am.
Residents thought that it was load-shedding however after numerous complaints to Eskom, they were left with more questions than answers.
Nearly 23 hours after the electricity was cut, Eskom technicians arrived at the site and fixed the problem, momentarily.
On February 5, load-shedding occurred for what should have been two hours, but only came back on at 1.30am.
Furthermore, residents say that upon contacting Eskom, no reasonable explanations or exact causes of the outages were provided.
Marburg resident, Jay Govender said the following, “It’s always the same story. They are always investigating the problem but nothing happens. Between load-shedding and technical faults we are lucky to have electricity for at least 10 hours straight.
I can’t understand why it takes so long to send technicians out. With Covid-19 we are all stuck at home and now we don’t even have a decent electricity supply. I am really at a loss.”
Residents now pose the following question, “When and how do we hold these service providers accountable and how much of their insufferable and incompetent service delivery must we endure before we start seeing some real reform?”
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