Westville residents air their frustration

A WESTVILLE resident laments about how she spent about R1 000 for the generator to keep her oxygen tank running when they went for days without electricity. Hester Farquharson speaks about the horrors she had to experience when they had an electricity outage. The resident said the electricity went off on Monday, January 2 around 11, taking turns with different areas. While some houses might have had electricity, the others did not, theirs included.

“I have been an asthma patient for 27 years now, and I see my doctor every six months. We have this generator my late husband bought for me during Covid. This works as a back-up, and I don’t even turn it on during load-shedding because I don’t have the money to buy petrol to keep it running. During the days we had no electricity, I had no choice but to keep it running, and the petrol cost me about R1 000,” she said.

ALSO READ: eThekwini warns Durban residents of upcoming water supply disruption

Lee Griffith said this incident is a reminder of the reason an organisation such as Westville Ratepayers
Association is formed.

Another resident expressed her frustration during the outage. “It was so frustrating to chase after people who are supposed to do their job. They finally came, and one of the workmen said it was due to a cable. He said the cable department would be coming through as it was not their problem. They came in for a few hours and left, and the power still wasn’t on, so my husband called the cable department, which said they will look into it. That was the last we heard from them; we tried almost all the community leaders who were also not coming up with answers.”

The Westville resident said that apart from losing food in the fridge that went bad because there was no power, it was stressful dealing with people who were unwilling to do their work. “The power came back on Wednesday at noon; there has still been no communication, and there were different community members who lodged the same complaint,” said the resident.

eThekwini Municipality spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said they were aware of the outage. “The fault was caused by a cable problem. Repair duration will always vary depending on the severity of the fault, hence, in this case, full restoration of supply was slightly longer than expected,” he said.