Note to Editors: Please find attached soundbites in English and Afrikaans by Cllr Arista Annandale.
The DA in the Mahikeng Local Municipality is concerned that residents may face another weekend without electricity supply.
The Mahikeng Central Business District (CBD) suffered electricity outages after last weekend’s torrential rain as well residents of Unit 6 who fell victim to the vandalism of a substation.
Eskom made numerous excuses and provided very few progress reports while all of the locations mentioned were without electricity for several days. In addition to the monetary losses residents had to endure, it was intolerably frustrating to never get any feedback or repair time estimates.
Shortly after the power supply was finally restored yesterday afternoon, a substation’s ring main unit (RMU) burned, sending the CBD back into complete darkness. With loadshedding scheduled for 22:00, residents had no time to enjoy the service they pay for.
With no feedback from Eskom since yesterday afternoon, there is little hope that the electricity supply will be restored before loadshedding is implemented at 22:00 tonight.
The DA’s Provincial Spokesperson for COGTAHS, Freddy Sonakile MPL, wrote to Eskom’s General Manager of the North West and Northern Cape, Marion Hughes, the Chief Operating Officer, Jan Oberholzer, and Chief Executive, Andre de Ruyter, requesting that they investigate the extended delays in restoring electricity supply as well as conduct an independent skills audit of all Eskom technical staff and management responsible for servicing the infrastructure supplying electricity to Mahikeng.
Among the critical issues that require attention are the complete lack of supervision over technicians, the absence of safety precautions to keep the infrastructure secure, and the failure to make any attempt to upgrade deteriorated infrastructure.
We further anticipate that any instances of sabotage or laziness on the part of Eskom personnel that resulted in unnecessarily long restoration times will be investigated and that disciplinary action will be taken against such people.
We also suggest that a capable manager be stationed in Mahikeng to keep a careful eye on all operations relating to electrical issues and outages as all senior managers now reside outside Mahikeng.
The DA condemns Eskom’s failure to uphold the norms and standards as prescribed by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) in terms of the Electricity Regulation Act of 2006 and will continue to use every tool at our disposal to protect the rights of consumers.