In a community meeting held yesterday 3 August 2020 at Ebony Park, Delphimum Street. It was resolved by community members that they will be a total shutdown in Ebony Park on Wednesday, 5 August 2020. The community will be demonstrating against the electricity crisis which has engulfed Kaalfontein, Allandale and Ebony Park (KAE).
The impasse between Eskom and communities in KAE continues. At the time of publishing 25 communities around KAE had transformer failures. Some of the communities have had their power restored while some have been in the dark for weeks.
The community of Ebony Park where the meeting was held is one such unfortunate community. The area has been in the dark since the 16th of July 2020. A transformer in the area caught fire after Eskom’s load reduction implementation. After countless calls to Eskom’s Contact Centre, the power utility has not replaced the transformer leaving the community in the dark for weeks. The blame has been placed at the Councilor’s door.
Earlier yesterday, community members met with the Councilor of Ward 111, Raisibe Matsemela at Kaalfontein near Boxer. The Councilor was meeting with community representatives of areas affected by power outages. After that meeting, some community representatives together with the councilor visited Eskom Distribution Centre in Chloorkop.
The feedback the community received was that the African National Congress (ANC) Councilor Matsemela is “arrogant”, “incompetent, “clueless” and unwilling to assist the community of Ebony Park. It is understood that the Councilor was unprepared at Eskom Offices and hastily submitted the documents concerning Ebony Park which were submitted to her days ago. Furthermore, the Councilor was accused of prioritizing Kaalfontein over Ebony Park. More shockingly is that most residents do not know who the councilor is.
Clr Matsemela was not available for comment at the time of publishing.
The community will conduct a peaceful demonstration tomorrow and all points of entry will be closed. KAE News understands that the local taxi association will stop operations on the day. More details will be shared as and when they become available.
