Fed up residents protest over outage

Angry residents from White City’s R and T sections in Mlungisi Township burnt tyres and branches in front of the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality technical services department last Friday, demanding electricity.

The residents had to endure two weeks without power.

However, after the protest, the power was restored later on Friday.

The residents complained that they received no communication from the municipality and that their problem was not attended to.

The said they had repeatedly reported the power outage to the municipality but no-one showed up to investigate the problem.

Resident Babalwa Thobeko said: “We have a problem with Sondlo and Sizani streets.

“We have been calling the municipality and they kept on promising to come and check the problem but they never did.

“Our ward councillor, Xoliswa Williams, tried to assist us as well but her efforts fell on deaf ears.”

Last Thursday, residents saw a municipal electricity department truck in the vicinity and asked the workers to look at what was causing the problem in the area.

“We were told to dig for ourselves so the cables would be exposed and the problem could be seen,” Thobeko said.

“We did that with the help of residents coughing up R5 per house for those who dug for us.”

She said when the residents arrived at EMLM’s offices on Friday morning, they requested to speak to electrical engineer Madodana Matola.

“While we were speaking to the receptionist, Matola went out through the back leaving us inside,” she said.

The residents then started to burn tyres, demanding to speak to Matola, who eventually returned to address their leaders, after the SAPS intervened.

Matola told the residents the municipality had not been able to attend to their issue because it was busy fixing problems in other areas that were affected by last week’s storm.

“We are also working with limited resources, yesterday we had issues with our truck and we do not have everything as we have monetary problems,” said Matola.

Councillor Williams said: “I do not understand why technical services does not have the material whereas we took a resolution as the council to have the material bought during the December holidays.

“What I hear now is that we take decisions that are not followed up on.”

She said she was tired of the impression the municipality created that people were not doing their jobs.

EMLM spokesperson, Lonwabo Kowa said: “There were many area faults at the time due to the thunderstorm and it was not possible to repair them all at the same time.”