Battle for power rages in Belhar
ON her neighbour’s floor clutching her 10-year-old son in her arms, a nebuliser mask on his mouth, a Cape Town mother’s David and Goliath battle with Eskom started.
With a winter storm raging outside, Wendy Manuel of Belhar ran to her neighbour’s home in search of an electricity outlet after her son had suffered an asthma attack in the morning.
The previous day — July 3 last year — Eskom had cut her power; it said she had failed to pay her bill of more than R74 000.
That was the last time she and husband, Sean van der Poll, had electricity in their home. Now the public protector is scrutinising the case, and the desperate mother is willing to sell her house to fight Eskom in court.
“To me it’s like dying a slow death. They are torturing me. In winter it was very difficult coming back at four o’clock and it gets dark at five. The kids need to do homework,” she said.
In 2008 she resigned as a coordinator at the University of Western Cape’s Legal Clinic to start an engineering business with her husband.
She had three-phase electricity installed and with a few machining and calibration machines quickly grew her business, as one of the first black women to own an engineering firm in the Western Cape.
L&W Precision and General Engineering employed 20 people, including six registered apprentices and a Cape Peninsula University of Technology engineering student.
Her company won the accolade for the best-performing technology transfer-fund intervention at the 2011 Department of Trade and Industry Technology HITTING BACK: Sean van der Poll and Wendy Manuel help 10-year-old Luke van der Poll with his schoolwork at their home in Belhar, Cape Town. Manuel has complained to the public protector over her treatment by Eskom
In winter it was very difficult coming back at four o’clock and it gets dark at five
Awards.
Shortly after she started the company, Eskom said she owed it R19 000, but failed to provide invoices to justify the amount. By 2012, she said, that figure had risen to R74 000 because of interest.
Eventually she had to close shop. She was forced to sell two machines to pay school fees and other bills.
“We used to use paraffin lamps at the beginning but we can’t use them any more because my children are asthmatics, and they suffer from hay fever,” said Manuel.
Eskom would sporadically switch off her electricity between 2008 and 2015, she said. On October 31 2012 the High Court in Cape Town gave Eskom six hours to restore power to her house.
Eskom defied the court order, and Manuel got the court’s sheriff and a private electrician to switch her electricity back on.
Acting Judge Judith Cloete also ordered Eskom to provide a “comprehensive and detailed statement of account”. Manuel is still waiting. Kgalalelo Masibi, spokeswoman for the public protector, confirmed that the matter was on Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s desk.
Eskom hit back, saying it was suing Manuel.
“Ms Manuel has resolutely refused to reach any payment arrangement despite being presented with a detailed reconciliation setting out charges, payments and late payment charges,” a statement by the power utility read.
It also accused Manuel of tampering with her meter box but was unable to say what amount she was going to be fined for this.