Johannesburg - Hundreds of East Rand residents marched to the Ekurhuleni metro council offices yesterday to demand a regular energy supply.
The residents braved the cold weather and some of them arrived as early as 7am to hand over their petitions to the municipal bosses urging them to deal with the power crisis.
In the petitions they detailed how the constant blackouts had disrupted their lives. They also highlighted the increasing levels of cable theft in Primrose and surrounding suburbs in Ekurhuleni.
The Saturday Star spoke to two families who, like the residents who marched to the council offices, had been victims of irregular outages and crime.
Yusuf Joseph, 35, is an unemployed man - a qualified technician who had stopped working several years ago after hurting one of his fingers while repairing his brother’s house. He has since been surviving on a disability grant. His wife is unemployed, too, and they have three children, the youngest a six-months old baby.
“These blackouts have been going on for more than a year. The main thing affecting us is cable theft. We are also worried about these municipal officials who come to our houses, despite us experiencing these blackouts, and put off our electricity.
“The problem is we have to pay exorbitant amounts of money to restore the power,” Joseph said.
He appealed to council to set up a plan to deal with those responsible for cable theft, labelling them drug users. Joseph said they stole and sold cables to dealers in order to fund their drug habits.
“They jump into our yards and steal whatever they can find. At times they just destroy the mini-station and rip off everything they could find for them to go out and sell. That leaves us with no electricity for days.
“If the government could help us with the restoration of power and crime in our area, we will be grateful,” he said.
Also appealing for assistance is businessman Johan Spangenberg who used his retirement savings to open a bottle store in January. The partially blind businessman is equally worried about constant blackouts as they affect his profits.
“It is affecting my business. I did not want to be dependent on family and friends and so I decided to build something for myself.
“In my short time as a businessman, I had to spend lots of money on petrol for the generator due to these blackouts. At times I do not get enough profit from the sale of alcoholic beverages because I would be expected to use the same money to buy petrol,” he said.
Spangenberg said if power was out on a single day, he would have to fork out more than R700 on petrol for the generator and during weekends, as the demand for alcohol grew, his spending on petrol also escalated.
“People do not want hot drinks. The generator must be there to keep their drinks cold but I do not enjoy the profit due to these blackouts. I have to spend a little profit on petrol,” he said.
Spangenberg said the situation became worse early this year when they had no electricity for more than seven days, saying “we had to put our food away and ask for water from neighbouring communities who have electricity”.
Like the residents who marched to the municipal offices, Spangenberg wished for the council to fix the electrical cables and to provide them with constant power.