Boy electrocuted to death by power box

The Bokaba family spent the Christmas holidays mourning following the death of their nine-year-old son, Neo Bokaba, who was electrocuted by a faulty power box which the family alleged was supplied by Eskom.

Neo died on 5 December and was buried on the 12th after meeting his untimely death at his Ext 2 home in the crowded township.

Neo was supposed to go into to Grade 3 at Basa Primary School on 13 January, but that was not to be. Instead, his body was lowered into his final resting place at a Diepsloot cemetery.

His grandmother, Athalia Dlamini, told Fourways Review that the incident followed after Eskom allegedly replaced her power box with a faulty one. “This followed after Eskom replaced my old, safe power box I have been using for years. And when I called them [after the fatal incident], they asked me to source the services of an electrician, buy proper wires, plugs and earth electrodes,” said Dlamini who is still expecting answers from Eskom.

However, Eskom’s Media Desk issued a statement to this paper distancing itself from the allegedly faulty box. They also denied ever replacing the box. “The Eskom-supplied box was not faulty. The customer had her own distribution box earth leakage bypassed, which then makes her house unprotected on any earth faults in the house.

“This house is actually supplying another 15 backyard dweller shacks which have no proper wiring. This is wrong because you need to be authorised in writing by Eskom in order to work on Eskom equipment,” claimed Eskom’s Media Desk.

Eskom confirmed that after attending to the fatal incident, its technicians switched off power to the house due to unsafe wiring.

A report which Fourways Review had access to shows that no Certificate of Compliance was issued for the box when it was installed at gogo Dlamini’s property.

The box was installed against a zinc sheet, and uncovered wires were hanging around the box when Fourways Review visited the family.

Eskom said that power to the house will only be switched on after a Certificate of Compliance has been acquired, which the power utility said was the responsibility of the family.

Dlamini denied claims that illegal electricity connections could have led to the death of the child. “I have a metered power box on my property and there is no reason for doing any illegal connections,” said Dlamini.

However, the power utility accused the family of tampering with Eskom’s equipment.

When the news team visited the family on 16 January, gogo Dlamini was still in the process of buying the correct box, wires and plugs. She showed us six metres of bare wire, three metres of core armoured cable, an earth electrode and a standard power box.

“Eskom asked me to buy all this and this has cost me R1 700,” said Dlamini.

“A Certificate of Compliance [confirming the safe wiring of the house] is the responsibility of the owner of the property, not the electricity supplier like Eskom,” read part of Eskom’s statement.

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