Community members from Esibangweni location in Libode promised to work with law enforcement to ensure that workers from Eskom are able to work freely in the area.
This was confirmed by the portfolio head for infrastructure at Nyandeni Local Municipality, Councillor Zola Mevana, after they held a meeting with these community members with the aim of solving an issue where workers from Eskom were threatened, which led them to leave their duties, last week.
“We have spoken to the community and all the leaders were there, including the traditional leaders. They vowed that they would protect these workers. They also said they would make sure that they also deal with the illegal connections,” said Mevana.
Spokesperson for South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO), Sakumzi Norolela, said community members should stop these illegal connections because they were destroying the economy of Nyandeni Local Municipality.
He said many people had been affected by this withdrawal, including those who were buying electricity.
“Two schools and businesses faced the same problem. As SANCO, we appeal to people to stop this behaviour. If we are keeping on destroying what we have it means our government will always struggle to bring service delivery,” said Norolela.
Spokesperson for Eskom, Zama Mpondwana, confirmed that Eskom had taken a decision to withdraw its services in this location with immediate effect. This follows recent incidents of death threats directed towards Eskom employees. According to Mpondwana, the decision was taken to protect the safety of Eskom employees, its failing infrastructure, and to minimise the subsequent revenue losses that came as a result of energy losses from the area.
“Eskom is unable to operate and conduct the necessary audits in the above area due to acts of intimidation and threats to Eskom employees. We recently had a situation where an Eskom employee was followed and threatened at gunpoint by community members, who demanded that the employee reconnect supply that he had disconnected due to tampering on the meter,” said Mpondwana.
He added that the matter was reported to the South African Police Services, and they were grateful that the employee had escaped unharmed. He added that Eskom had a responsibility to do routine work in areas struggling with energy losses.
“The criminal behaviour that was directed to our employee, coupled with energy losses that continue to happen in the area have been viewed as a business risk.”
He said the matter had necessitated Eskom to take a decision of withdrawing its services in this area with immediate effect.
“As a part of normal operations, Eskom has a right and responsibility to remove illegally connected electricity users from the Eskom networks and evident tampering in affected areas. We also urge our communities to co-operate with Eskom to deal adequately with electricity-related matters.”
