FROM Wednesday to Friday, 12–14 October, residents of Winterveldt, Tshwane, have stopped all activities in the area to protest and demand electricity.
The angry residents have vowed to stop everything if the matter is not addressed. They are demanding back their electricity after being in the dark for two weeks.
Some said no car, person or pupil would be allowed to go to school.
Resident Siphiwe Sibiya said for the past two weeks, they had been living without electricity in their homes.
She said they’ve had electricity problems going beyond the two weeks, and that since the school opened on Tuesday, children had not been going to school.
“As long as we don’t have electricity, the strike will continue. We are waiting for rubber bullets, and we are ready to die for our rights,” she said.
Maria Mahumela said residents of Ward 12, 19 and 24 did not see the work of the councillor in the area, and called for him to step down.
Another resident Moses Makhubela said the government had failed them.
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“One transformer is not working and this affects us all. Our children are not going to school,” he said, adding that they could continue like this as their fridges had defrosted already.
A pupil said they were struggling, fearing that they would fail since this was the last schooling term.
Residents said Eskom needed to fix electricity, and that they would pay their bills.
Ward 24 councillor Chris Masia said he was aware of the electricity challenges in the area.
“I am engaging with Eskom officials to address the community,” he said.
Eskom spokeswoman Amanda Qithi said they were aware that residents had been without electricity for weeks.
“The electricity supply is currently affected due to severe vandalism, illegal and unauthorised operations on the network, resulting in extensive damage of the substation. The severity of the damages are such that it will take a prolonged period before repair work is concluded and supply is restored,” she said.
“We urge the community to refrain from illegally connecting transformers to the Eskom network and other unauthorised activities as these lead to network overload, and subsequently equipment failures and explosions. Customers should buy electricity from registered vendors. It is illegal and a criminal offence for unauthorised persons to operate on our network like installing transformers to it as this poses a safety risk to the public because these transformers might not meet the required specifications,” she added.
Qithi further said damages to the substation and the electricity equipment was of such a nature that there was no quick fix.
