Pretoria - All roads leading to Klipgat were closed yesterday by residents who have been protesting against the lack of electricity since Friday.
The residents initially thought it was either load shedding or load reduction, but to their surprise they discovered it was neither of the two.
Kate Slender said they had not had power since 3pm on Friday and resorted to the protest so that they could be heard.
“We want Eskom to come and restore our power. We have been waiting for our ward councillor to update us. It was said she went to Eskom offices to resolve this, but she has not provided us with any feedback.
“Our councillors don’t take us seriously. The two councillors in wards 36 and 37 have electricity, but we don’t, yet we are in the same community.
“We take it that our councillors are living a good life and do not care about the community.
“We were told since February that there would be power cuts, but it was not properly explained to us how it worked.”
Slender said community members went to Eskom offices, but they were not assisted.
Another community member said the most important thing for them was for electricity to be restored.
“We are deeply affected by this… Our children cannot go to school because there is no electricity and it is winter season. How will they go to school? They can’t bath and be clean.”
“We cannot do anything, we can’t cook, bath or warm ourselves up,” another community member said.
The community said not having electricity has created a window of opportunity for crime. The police station and the clinic were also not functioning.
The community vowed to continue protesting until the issue has been resolved.
“We had various meetings with Eskom. We were told that there is no money for repairs for transformers. It got out of hand when we bought transformers.
“Cable theft is rife and when we report it nothing gets fixed, but when we fix it ourselves it’s a problem," explained another protesting community member.
Parent John Mathebula also raised the issue of his children not being able to go to school.
“I have children and they are starving, our fridges are off. Our meat and other things are getting spoiled. Eskom, don’t play with us. We need electricity so our lives can go back to being normal.” Eskom had yet to comment, but electricity was restored yesterday afternoon.
Pretoria News