Protesters and Eskom reach agreement on load reduction
Eskom had a meeting with the Giyani Shutdown campaign organisers about the best way forward at the Greater Giyani Municipality’s offices on Monday, June 27 after a protest brought the town to a standstill on Friday, June 24.
The meeting was attended by the mayor, Thandi Zitha. This comes after Eskom implemented load reduction and started removing illegal connections in the Giyani Section F area a few weeks ago. The area was rid of over 150 illegally connected infrastructures, Eskom said in a statement on Monday June 20.
They also issued fines to five people for tampering with Eskom infrastructure. In reaction, a protest and shutdown were organised on Friday, June 24 with all roads leading to the CBD being blocked. At the meeting on Monday, the Eskom team said that they will try to act as fast as they can to solve the load reduction problem. “They asked community members to work with them by putting the shutdown on hold until they have repaired everything,” said Steven Mabunda, Greater Giyani Municipality (GGM) spokesperson.
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“Eskom again said that the main reason for load reduction is the illegal connections in some communities.” The community said that they cannot be blamed for other people’s mistakes and that Eskom should only cut the electricity to those with illegal connections. “Eskom promised that they will go from house to house and cut only illegal connections until they have fixed everything,” Mabubda told the Herald.
“Eskom said that they will work with the police once they have identified households with illegal connections,” he added. Another issue that the community had problems with was the fact that Eskom’s offices have been closed for two years now. “Eskom was asked to reopen their offices since there are some issues that cannot be resolved through the phone, they need physical consultation. Their offices have never reopened since the first national lockdown of Covid-19,” said Mabubda.
The mayor asked for the shutdown organisers to discontinue their strike upon which an agreement was reached. Meanwhile, the roads to the CBD have been cleared of debris and motorists can safely use them.
