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GATVOL RESIDENTS: Lights between midnight and 5am a pain

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FURIOUS residents refused to allow Emfuleni Mayor Sipho Radebe to deliver his State of the Municipality Address on Friday, 1 July.

Evaton North residents blocked three main roads leading to Wilberforce Community College, where the mayor was supposed to give his address, causing the event to be delayed and later called off.

The angry community members demanded that their power be restored.

They said for five months, their electricity had only been on between midnight and 5am, and sometimes there was no power for a week.

Thabiso Motloung (36) said he ran an internet cafe but he had not been able to open for a month due to the electricity issue.

Mayor Sipho Radebe said he had spoken to Eskom and the utility is aware of the electricity problem. Photos by Tumelo Mofokeng

He said residents had meetings with their councillor and also went to Eskom’s offices, but the problem was not solved. He said that when they heard that the mayor would be delivering his address in their kasi, they decided to block the roads to send a message.

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Addressing angry community members from inside a police nyala, Radebe committed Public Works MMC Vincent Jones and his team to solving the residents’ problem.

The mayor told them that he had engaged with Eskom and the power utility was aware of the problem, which was caused by a failing switch at a substation.

He said Eskom said very few people in the area bought electricity but there were many illegal connections.

Member of the Mayoral Committee for Public Works, Vincent Jones, tried to calm angry residents but they refused to listen to him and demanded to talk to the mayor.

The mayor said many people in Emfuleni were consumers of electricity but didn’t pay for it, and the municipality had to come up with ways to make people pay for what they used.

He asked residents to allow Eskom and the municipality to conduct meter audits as this would help solve the problem.

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