Thousands of residents from Inxuba Yethemba local municipality, which includes Middelburg, Cradock, and surrounding areas, have not been able to purchase electricity since last Friday afternoon, 16 September 2022. This has aggravated the already devastating impact of Eskom’s rolling blackouts on residents and businesses.
The municipality’s vendor electricity system has now been down for four days, with no clear explanation from the ANC council leadership or municipal officials regarding the cause. There has also been no indication given as to when it will be back online, or what plans are being put in place to ensure this does not happen again.
As a result, residents cannot purchase any top-up electricity from municipal registered vendors due to the system failure. This has the potential to cause significant financial losses to individual households and businesses that rely on the system.
If residents are unable to buy prepaid electricty, they will be forced to sit without power. Every day that the system is offline is another day that residents don’t have power, and businesses can’t trade.
It also impacts on the municipality’s ability to generate revenue from electricity sales, which is critical, as the municipality is in arrears with Eskom to the amount of R326 million.
I have written to the Eastern Cape MEC for CoGTA, Zolile Williams, informing him of the situation and demanding to know what caused the system to fail and what plans will be put in place to ensure system integrity to avoid this from happening again.
The DA will continue to fight for the rights of our people.