Pretoria - Residents have called on the City of Tshwane to improve its reaction response time after a municipal official was hijacked and forced to reconnect electricity.
Residents reacted to the City condemning their behaviour on Thursday, and continued to complain of prolonged power outages, some of which went on for days, unexplained either by the City or Eskom.
On Thursday evening a City system operator from the Soshanguve depot was hijacked and held hostage. People drove around with him and tried to force him to power up their electricity.
The City said: “The manager managed to escape and the City is grateful for a life spared.
“The City strongly condemns this criminal behaviour in any part of the municipality. The perpetrators of this despicable behaviour should know that as a consequence of their actions, all teams operating from the Soshanguve depot have been grounded to safeguard the plant, equipment and personnel,” spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said.
The persisting phenomenon of harassment and robbery of officials while on duty had dire consequences – it hindered service delivery, he said.
“The City is banking on communities in need of services to protect electricians and artisans who are on call for infrastructure maintenance.”
The City appealed to residents to stop intimidating, assaulting and threatening officials and damaging City assets and infrastructure.
“If some sections of the community continue with this thuggish behaviour, they will make it difficult for our officials to respond to service delivery interruptions,” said Mashigo.
Meanwhile, city residents took to social media to vent their frustrations, after being forced to survive with severe and continued power outages, which they reported, but ended up thinking the City did not care.
@Nathi wrote: “At first I would have been against what they are doing, but after the past few days without electricity I have come to understand why they do this. You guys (the City) barely communicate with us when there’s a trip or maybe the cables have been stolen. Update us, but you prefer to keep quiet and expect people to fold their arms.
“Many families have lost their groceries because of prolonged power outages. The worst thing is we see the vans going around our blocks without fixing things. We are tired of being taken as trash.“
He said the criminal actions were the consequence of municipal lack of action. “If you properly communicated and treated us as humans, none of this would have happened. I hope the employee received counselling for this unfortunate event.”
Others posted pictures of workmen lying on the ground, napping, and asked if these were the people who required protection and if it was the service delivery they should accept.
Boitumelo said: “We (are) still waiting for the reason why there were blackouts,” while Driza quipped: “Honestly … y’all think the so-called assailants read these communications? Let’s be real, they are not here on Twitter, nor do they care about what you condemn or not. What’s important is whether the poor Tshwane workers are gonna (sic) get protection moving forward and any compensation.”
Some said keeping up to date with load shedding schedules was fruitless as they would be in the dark from one day to the next, being inconvenienced as if they were neither citizens of the city nor tax paying individuals.
Security personnel and the Tshwane Metro Police Department have been requested to patrol Soshanguve Block KK and Soshanguve Block F Depot to prevent any possible attacks. Residents said they had had no power for too long, blaming the City for failing to respond timeously or even explaining, and ignoring their cries while giving attention to affluent areas.
Pretoria News