Johannesburg - “Eskom, you don’t know what you want. We gave you a hand, gave you an arm and gave you breasts... you don’t know what you want.”
So sang the community of Protea North in Soweto passionately as they stood in front of the steel gates of the regional Eskom office as hawk-eyed police officers and the power utility’s security guards watched the crowd closely.
When they got to the part where they mentioned the breasts, ample-breasted women fondled theirs, to the amusement of the crowd.
The electrically charged community had marched from Protea North to the power utility’s Midway offices to hand their memorandum of grievances to James Motau of Eskom’s revenue management, responsible for split metering in Gauteng.
In the crowd was a man on crutches and pensioners depleted by the long march. “I will ask the police to take me home in a police van after this. I am very tired,” an old woman said as she leaned against a police van parked at the gate.
Residents claimed that since Eskom had installed the new electricity meters in their community, they were paying more for power than they used to and that the prices were inconsistent.
They also claimed they were not consulted about the installation of the meters. A resident, who preferred to be known only as Mohale, said he used to pay between R400 and R500 a month for electricity consumption
But since he was switched on to this new meter a week-and-a-half ago, he had already paid R800 just to keep the lights on at his house, although it was only him, his wife and two children at home.
In their memorandum, residents demanded that they get a flat rate tariff of R150 a month and that the project of switching the community to the new meters be stopped immediately.
Eskom should also remove all their employees working on the new meters from the community.
“We can’t control the community, we don’t know what they will do,” a resident reading the memorandum, said.
Motau promised he would look into the grievances and respond.
He said the problem with the old meters was that they were inside people’s houses and Eskom could not control them. They were easily breached and tampered with. The new ones are in a steel enclosure in the street and accessible only to Eskom.
“The resistance (from the community) is because they can’t access the meters to tamper with them.
“Now we are controlling our meters, securing our revenue, reducing the losses and improving the safety of our people,” Motau added.
He said people were paying more for electricity now compared to when they had the old meters because some people were buying electricity from illegal suppliers who were stealing electricity and selling it. And with the new meters, users would only be able to get vouchers from accredited suppliers, he noted.
Eskom had removed its employees in line with the residents’ demands, fearing for their safety.
But Motau said residents would never get their flat-rate tariff demand.
“There is no flat rate tariff in Eskom. Eskom is a regulated business, regulated by Nersa,” he said.
The Star