For the past ten days, residents of Chiltern Drive have not had electricity, and for some, their holy month begins in darkness. | Doctor Ngcobo/ Independent Newspapers
Durban — The eThekwini Municipality is expected to update the public on Wednesday on developments with the SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) strike as Reservoir Hills residents experience the brunt of the strike.
For the past 10 days, residents of Chiltern Drive have not had electricity, and for some, their holy month begins in darkness.
Many of these residents will be celebrating Ramadan Mubarak but they will experience no light as food gets wasted.
This is just one of many areas without electricity and water supply in the municipality.
Councillor Alicia Kissoon said, “We are on day 10 of our outage which is a crisis. Residents have lost food purchased with hard-earned cash and can ill afford this.
“Pensioners and elders are suffering in this heat and the Ramadan fast begins for many in the area.
“I have been trying to get electricians out to our area and our issue is currently with the Springfield depot where it is prioritised once work commences.”
She said she received the following directly from the depot: “Good morning councillors, please note we have +- 6 Mvs and + 60 Lvs breakdowns outstanding here at the depot.
“Staff are at work but are still afraid to go out to work amid the uncertainty about the strike and we had some incidents of harassment that have been reported.
“Contractors have also been stopped until the strike has been resolved.”
Kissoon said she has since written to the city manager for him to respond as she believes the issue can be attended to quickly “if we can get a team out”.
She would inform all residents if any response was received and would continue to knock on every door until they got someone out there, she said.
One resident reported that last Friday, about 20 water meters were broken on Palmiet Road.
She said, “The funny thing is that they broke the meters and then fixed it after letting water flow.”
The resident added that she doesn’t think this is only the municipality’s fault “as it is easy to blame them for everything”.
Instead, she suggested that it could be another “individual or individuals” playing a game.
Executive member of the Reservoir Hills Ratepayers Association (RHRA) non-profit company, Yogesh Naidoo, said, “On March 1 at 11 am, our cable exploded at home. This was a few days after the strike. The cable links from the junction box to our meter box are damaged.
“We’ve lost a lot of food. We had to purchase a cable, costing us R1 250, and then get an electrician to connect at our own cost despite it being a municipal cost.
“To date, we are doing the best we can to charge our devices.
“This morning, I was informed that the municipality closed our complaint and I had to force them to reopen it.”
Naidoo said this goes hand in hand with what that had been occurring even before the strike.
He said that most of the time, there is positive feedback when the RHRA logs complaints.
“We were contacted by the councillor’s office to intervene on Friday. We then wrote to the eThekwini head of Electricity’s office through his secretary.
“We picked up that there was going to be possible unrest.
“With the councillor’s office, we got the Reservoir Hills Community Policing Sub-Forum, the Clare Estate Action Committee, the Clare Estate Ratepayers Association, private security companies, metro police and the SAPS, among others, to assist.
“The City had to send an undercover vehicle with the right staff and equipment, but the issue was that these workers were threatened.
“The sad part is that Chiltern residents don’t have any power. As of 2pm, they have now realised that there’s no water,” Naidoo said.
EThekwini Municipality spokesperson Gugu Sisilana said the City was “working tirelessly” to attend to major power outages in several areas.
“Dispatched teams are actively identifying faults to restore power supply as soon as possible.
“They have already restored large power outages in areas such as Westmead, Pinetown and Austerville.
“We assure residents that reported faults will be attended to and resolved as soon as possible,” she said.
WhatsApp your views on this story to 071 485 7995.
Daily News