Johannesburg - While the supply of electricity has been listed as an essential service under Covid-19 lockdown rules, Eskom employees are alleged to have stopped power reconnection work in Soweto and the residents are crying foul.
The residents of extension 12, Kliptown have been without power for more than a year and are concerned they face another dark and cold winter after months of petitioning Eskom, which was in the process of repairs including disconnecting illegal connections in the informal settlement, shortly before the lockdown.
However, the project was suspended to comply with regulations, leaving residents fuming. Neighbours and friends Mapule Siholo, 78, and Judith Ngwenya, 76, said it was dehumanising to be still living in the small, two-roomed houses they moved into 59 years ago. They said the lack of electricity was a further infringement of their rights.
“We should rather be fed poison and die,” said Siholo, adding that her life was especially unbearable on cold days. “We have buried so many of our mates because their medication needed to be stored in a fridge, while some relied on electric oxygen tanks for breathing. What we don’t understand is how such an important service can be halted.”
Ngwenya said she suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis and thyroid gland disorder and would not be able to face another winter without electricity.
“Winter is on us again and I don’t think I will survive it. It’s so cold and difficult; death is better than this.” In Orlando East, 130 families have been living without electricity for four months after a central transformer exploded. They claimed Eskom demanded they pay R6000 each to reconnect power to about 80% of the households which were affected.
“How are we going to get this amount when we aren’t getting any income - when most houses here depend on social grants? The government is not considering the severity of our situation. We want to do what is right but our pockets are empty and we are hungry,” said Sphiwe Fakude.
In a statement, Eskom acknowledged the prolonged power outages that plagued some Soweto residents and attributed them to an “exponential overload of the network caused by illegal connections, bypassed meters and vandalism of the power utility’s electricity infrastructure”.
Senior manager for maintenance and operations Motlhabane Ramashi said: “We will not be in a position to meet the needs for repeated network failures due to overloading as a result of illegal connections, as this is not financially viable and is putting further strain on critical resources including materials during the national lockdown period. “
Trevor Ngwane of Gauteng Electricity Movement said he believed the lockdown had exposed the hypocrisy of the government and big business.
“It is cruelty, bordering on criminality, to rob households, already traumatised by fear of the virus, the economic insecurity engendered by the lockdown and the suspension of freedom of movement of a basic service such as electricity. We must condemn this in the strongest terms,” he said.
Ngwane said it was important that water, electricity, shelter and health care were provided during these tough times. “These basics must be provided even after the crisis has passed. If not, perhaps the sudden concern about people who live in shacks and the overcrowding which limits their ability for social distancing, and inadequate supplies of water to wash their hands might originate from a selfish place where the middle classes are worried that ‘they’ will get sick and infect ‘us’.
“Post-coronavirus must become post-poverty, post-inequality and post-unemployment,” said Ngwane.