Broadway family has paid up bill, but no power
A Broadway family was left without power for a day when the municipality cut the wrong house's power.
IMAGINE the confusion Belinda Burne and her family felt when their power was cut, but their bill was paid up.
On Thursday 13 March Burne returned home after work to find her electricity had been off since that morning. When her husband took a walk around the neighbourhood to see whether it was load-shedding, he was surprised to find they were the only home in Swapo Road (Broadway) that had no power.
“When I got home just after 5pm I immediately called the eThekwini Municipality Electricity Department to find out if there was a fault in the area,” Burne said.
“But I was told there was no fault reported and that it is likely that our power had been cut because we didn’t pay our bill.”
Burne said while her husband was walking around the neighbourhood, a neighbour told him that they saw a municipal worker climb up the electricity pole earlier that day.
“I again called the faults department to inform them that they cut off the wrong house’s electricity. They asked for my account number, which I didn’t have at hand and then said they couldn’t help me without the account number.
“Surely they could have picked up my account on their system with an ID number or address?”
Burne and her family then sat in complete darkness for the remainder of the night until the same municipal worker returned on the morning of Friday 14 March.
“The municipal worker said when he cut the power it wan’ t clear which home’s power he had cut, because he couldn’t see which house the electricity cable led to,” she added.
She expressed her frustration at the municipality’s lack of interest to restore power to their home that same night, but said they were lucky that no food in their fridge or freezer spoiled as a result of the day-long power cut.
