Dennilton residents demand reliable electricity supply

DENNILTON

With an ongoing Eskom power cuts implemented during load-reduction and load-shedding in Dennilton, community members, leaded by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), have on Wednesday 5 February 2025, engaged with Eskom management at Elandsdoorn Eskom offices, aiming to discuss ways to prevent negative impact brought by the power cuts which is seemingly on the rise in the communities.

For the past few years, there has been growing concerns from residents of Dennilton and other various villages in Sekhukhune District Municipality (SDM), who have been complaining about how load reduction is crippling small businesses in their area.

They were stating that power cuts affect local businesses where mortuary fridges can no longer cope and forcing families of the deceased to either arrange urgent funerals or face semi decomposed bodies during burials.

They also say the load-reduction is threatening their safety by affecting network tower batteries which need strict 10 hours supply of non-disturbance.

The disgruntled residents say black owned business like internet cafes and tuck shops are being badly affected and could not make profit as a result of power outages.

They say household appliances are affected and getting damaged where local schools are also negatively affected because computers and printers are not working.

The community claim the power cuts contribute to a high rate of crime such as armed robberies and house breakings committed during load-reduction periods.

Ali Maloba, EFF Councillor in SDM, said they visited the power utility office to demand the end of load reduction, which he says it has been implemented over 300 days in the communities.

Last year Maloba has on behalf of communities affected by load-reduction, written an open letter to the office of Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, seeking his intervention to end the ongoing load-reduction in Sekhukhune.

However, according to Maloba, the minister’s office could not respond to the community concerns.

“The sad part is Eskom and Electricity Minister are both quiet and is business as usual. We need to know the reason why load-reduction is being only implemented in rural areas?” asked Maloba.  

Load reduction is implemented by Eskom as a measure to prevent overloading of the electricity network and is usually done in areas where there is a high risk of network overloading due to electricity theft, such as illegal connections and meter tampering.

Maloba added that affected residents are even buying legit Eskom electricity vouchers and their electricity metres were vetted declared valid and compliant, but still they are punished with load-reduction.

During the meeting Eskom responded that Dennilton community concerns will be escalated to customer services department. However, Maloba indicated that they were not satisfied with the response and will convene a community meeting to try and find their own resolutions.

“We are not begging down, Eskom must come clean or face a long term community resistance,” he said.

At the time of going to print, Matshidiso Phaladi, Eskom Customer Relations Manager in Limpopo, was not available for a comment.