Selective loadshedding: Inequality is still so evident
Can you aid us to really find out why we are still victims of this unequal treatment in 2014?
EDITOR – My name is Buhle Xulu, I live in eLovu Rainbow Park.
I am a concerned member of the community who has spent copious amounts of time and money over the years fighting a losing battle over the selective power outages that seem to only affect certain areas and not others.
I’ve lived here since 1998 and we are neighbours with Almond Road in St Winifreds. Can you imagine how annoying it is to not have electricity when your neighbours have electricity? We witness this everytime when we’re lurking in the dark but there’s power across the road. This is totally unfair.
Ethekwini Municipality has failed for years to answer why the power outages and load shedding or whatever reason they’ve coughed up is selective and doesn’t not affect St Winifreds, Doonside, Toti and all surrounding suburbs. Do I really have to ask the ‘is it because we’re black?’ question?
It’s very sad that such things are happening 20 years after democracy, if it’s a fault in the system, then why doesn’t the municipality take measures or steps to rectify this fault and explain this blatant differentiation to affected communities which are predominantly black? We also pay rates for crying out loud. But we’re given substandard services. It is utterly disgusting that people’s needs are just discarded because they are assumed to be ignorant and cannot see when inequality is still so evident.
Can you aid us to really find out why we are still victims of this unequal treatment in 2014? Why is eThekwini Municipality discriminating against us? If there is load shedding it must apply to everyone – just like the ridiculous rates they impose on us. We pay for electricity, it’s not like it’s given to us on credit.
