Tensions reached boiling point at West Village on Monday, 7 September when residents took to the streets to march to the offices of the West Rand Power Distributor (WRPD) to hand over a memorandum.
WRPD and its legal representatives confirmed that they had received the “memorandum of demand from representatives of the West Village community”, adding that, “We are in the process of considering the content of the said memorandum, which contains, amongt other, various enquiries of a technical nature. We will be providing the appropriate response thereto where and if possible.”
When the News arrived at the gathering before the memorandum was handed over, two groups approached the journalist with two different claims.
The first involved the memorandum specifically. Laura van der Merwe noted that she owns a home in West Village and rents it out to Dirk and Rina Steenkamp.
Laura claimed that the electricity bill for the house used to be about R1 600, give or take. Over the past few months, especially during lockdown, the electricity bills increased to about R5 000. Laura further asserted that she asked on a West Village municipal group whether others had been experiencing similar problems and received many replies from the community.
She finally claimed that she was asked to apologise for her comments on the group and that she allegedly did just that. Laura claimed that she had made an arrangement to make payments of R2 000 toward the house’s mounting electricity debt.
She noted, “After we said we were going to march today, we were told that half of the pre-paid [electricity amounts bought] would go toward settling debt, and the other half to electricity”. As response from WRPD on these accusations is pending.
Grace Pule, a community leader at West Village read the memorandum out loud to those present before it was handed over to the WRPD management.
The memorandum included important issues such as the community requested that WRPD brief them on the specifics of the tariff that is applied to bill them, and that WRPD would consider rather using ‘municipal tariffs’ (referring to tariffs used by Mogale City Local Municipality, which is a separate electricity provider and does not supply electricity to West Village) or Eskom, adding that they want the same unit price for electricity as Krugersdorp CBD, Krugersdorp West and Boltonia to which WRPD does not supply electricity.
The community requested that WRPD hold quarterly meetings with this ‘newly elected committee’ to inform them on developments surrounding community bills (note that local municipalities such as Mogale City don’t hold similar meetings with community leaders, as it’s a fairly irregular practice or expectation to have).
The community further expects WRPD to create a special programme for pensioners and impoverished residents, and requested an explanation from the provider as to their social responsibility activities toward West Village.
The second group that approached the News was a family of four living in a commune in West Village.
Carlien Swanepoel claimed that they were behind on their payments at the beginning of the year but made arrangements to catch up over time.
When the lockdown started, and their main breadwinner Sheralee Lurie, who is wheelchair-bound, fell ill, they reportedly went further into debt with the WRPD. Furthermore, Carlien claimed that they complained when, reportedly, people were moved into the house during lockdown and reported it to the police.
She claimed that, because of this and their debt, their electricity supply was cut and other members of the house were told not to give them access to their electricity connections. It should be noted that it’s common for a household’s electricity supply to be cut when they fail to make a number of payments.
Finally, the WRPD noted through their legal representatives that, “In respect of the allegations made and/ or submissions as set out in the information request submitted by yourself [the News‘ enquiry into the matter] we record that our clients do not bear any knowledge of the facts stated therein, and are similarly in the process of investigating the claims made.
“Accordingly we cannot reply thereto in detail at this point in time and on such short notice, and our clients’ rights are reserved to address same at the appropriate time. We trust you will find the above to be in order and our further correspondence shall follow.”
