POLOKO TAU
MORE residents have been arrested in connection with the fiery protests this week in Chiawelo, where two houses belonging to councillors were torched.
More than 20 people were due to appear in the Protea Magistrate’s Court today to face charges relating to the torching of the houses on Tuesday.
Police said the suspects had been charged with public violence, arson, malicious damage to property as well as attempted murder, which relates to the setting fire to houses while there were people inside.
Meanwhile, an intervention by the City of Joburg did not yield results after angry Chiawelo residents, at a community meeting yesterday, refused to allow Eskom workers into their area.
Eskom had asked to be allowed access so that it could reconnect electricity supply to about 200 houses that had been without power for more than a week.
Those were houses disconnected by Eskom because they had been connected illegally.
The protest was sparked on Tuesday after Eskom arrived in Chiawelo under police guard to fix vandalised “green boxes”, undo illegal connections and reconnect the houses.
Technicians were chased away before residents took to the streets in protest and burnt a car and two houses belonging to a former councillor and a current one.
Despite others being in the dark yesterday residents still maintained they would not allow Eskom to work in their area. Residents complained that Eskom’s split metering system, which was rolled out in Chiawelo as a pilot project for Soweto five years ago. was too expensive.
Addressing residents at the Chiawelo Community Centre yesterday, Eskom’s sales and customer services regional manager Bandile Jack dismissed residents’ claims that the power utility was overcharging them.
Residents had complained that the electricity was running fast and that there was no consistency in the kilowatt-hour units they were buying, saying they were getting fewer units for the same amount.
One of the residents who spoke at the meeting, pensioner Leticia Tshabalala, asked Eskom to “please remove your boxes because we’re dying since they were installed”.
“I have slips to show that I have been buying electricity, but the units I have been getting were inconsistent every time I bought. All our pension money is spent on this expensive electricity,” she complained.
Another resident, Michael Mosioa, said residents had tried in vain to get Eskom and the City of Joburg to discuss their electricity problems.
“Had we been listened to, none of this would have happened. People have reacted angrily because the councillor has stood aside and said our electricity problems had nothing to do with him when asked to do something,” he said.
Attempts by Eskom’s Jack to explain the tariffs was met by residents’ yells of disagreement.
Meanwhile, residents hastily left the meeting after their demand for police to release the six people arrested this week drew a blank.
Jack said they were not going to go into Chiawelo until there had been some agreement that the boxes would be fixed, illegal connections would be undone, and those switched off were reconnected so that everyone could start paying for their electricity consumption.
“Right now it is not safe for us to go there,” Jack said.
There was a heavy police presence in Chiawelo as the cops continued to monitor the situation last night.
No incidents were reported, police said.