Outrage over power cuts as residents protest
Residents of Aliwal North and Steynsburg towns in Walter Sisulu municipality brought Aliwal North to a standstill today, protesting against power cuts in the two areas.
The residents woke up early today and started singing in the streets of Aliwal North, blocking the N6 Road to Komani and two roads entering the town from Burgersdorp and Lady Grey.
In a telephonic interview with DispatchLIVE, community leader Bulelwa Dial said the residents of the two affected town decided to close down Aliwal North so that the municipality can speed up paying Eskom.
Dial said the power cuts were as a result of the R115-million debt owed by Walter Sisulu municipality to Eskom.
“We don’t care how they pay it, all we want is electricity. Our things are rotting in our fridges and appliances are blowing because of the cuts,” she said.
She said as residents they owe Eskom nothing.
“The municipality owes Eskom, not us. We must not suffer for their mistake. We want them to resolve this and we want electricity back,” Dial said.
She said every morning and afternoon there are hours that they spend without electricity.
“That affects us as the community. It is December and we want to have electricity. We can’t be measured when to have electricity and not to,” she said.
She said they have been complaining to the municipality but the municipality does not respond.
“Our council is useless and does nothing to solve the problem. Out of the municipalities under Walter Sisulu only Aliwal North and Steynsburg are affected by this,” Dial said.
She said every time in December they have to suffer the same consequences.
Walter Sisulu municipality was established in August 2016 when Gariep local municipality which covered Burgersdorp, Oviston Nature Reserve, Steynsburg, Venterstad was merged with Maletswai local Municipality which covers Aliwal North and Jamestown.
Walter Sisulu local municipality municipal manager Thembinkosi Mawonga said they had a problem of electricity as there were planned interruptions of electricity by Eskom because of the debt owed by the municipality to Eskom.
“This has been happening for a long time and the interruption of supply takes two hours in the morning and evening. As the municipality we issued a notice that this will happen and we also presented it to stakeholders including the businesses,” he said.
Mawonga said there were people who were not taking the merging of the municipalities very well.
“Both entities owed Eskom over R50-million when they were merged and when their debt was combined the new entity owed Eskom more than R100-million. That grabbed the attention of Eskom as to how can a small municipality owe such huge amount,” he said.
Mawonga said the municipality cannot pay that amount of money until the provincial government and the national government intervene.