Cape Town - Residents of Macassar, Eersteriver, Croydon, Faure and areas southeast of Baden Powell Drive, among others, say they are at their wits end over Eskom’s failure to provide electricity to the areas for days on end.
This, as a Mitchells Plain activist bemoaned the impact of load shedding that has endangered the lives of poor and indigent people, following the death of three family members when a candle caused their house to catch fire during load shedding.
“The whole community is affected by this tragedy ... This is no way to live between having to choose whether to buy a loaf of bread or a candle to light up the house due to the blackouts, and the crime that occurs during this time.
“It’s too much,” said community worker Wihdaad Williams.
Peter Helfrich, councillor for ward 109 which includes Macassar, said residents believed that the area was one of the worst affected by the ongoing blackouts, that extend well beyond load shedding.
“We have extended blackouts from four to six hours a day that sometimes goes on for two days or more,” he said.
Helfrich said the situation has become so bad that extended power cuts were a weekly occurrence.
“I can tell you that thousands have suffered major losses with food going bad and electrical appliances being ruined.
“The little food that we have now has to be thrown away, because it goes bad when there is no electricity to power our fridges.
“Eskom does have a claims process but it is strenuous and useless,” he said.
He said residents were planning a protest march against the blackouts to demand urgent action from Eskom.
The embattled power utility did not respond for comment by deadline.
In Mitchells Plain, Tafelsig residents have blamed load shedding for the recent deaths of three family members, including children who died when a blaze engulfed their home in Mont Blanc Street at the weekend.
A fourth family member, a 23-year-old man who sustained third-degree burns, was discharged from hospital on Monday.
Williams said the residents were frustrated with the power cuts and blamed the deaths of their neighbours on the power outages.
“It has come to light that the family lit a candle which resulted in the fire.
“The others are still in hospital including a three-year old.
“We blame Eskom, because when you are poor the only thing you can afford is a candle, which has proved to be dangerous time and time again.
“Now a family has died and the survivor has nothing.
“He is wearing his mother’s night- gown because he has nothing.
“Something has to give, people can’t live like this,” said a frustrated Williams.
During a virtual briefing in January, Eskom chairperson Mpho Makwana said the recovery of generation performance would not happen soon.
“The execution of the recovery plan requires that power stations are given time to execute the utility’s recovery plan, which requires either adding more capacity to do proper maintenance or create some predictability by implementing permanent Stage 2 or Stage 3 load shedding for the next two years for some consistency, Makwana said.
Cape Times