Residents of Inkanyeni settlement in Makhanda, formerly known as Grahamstown, today took to the streets demanding to be connected to the electrical grid.
The Eastern Cape community says it has been in talks with the municipality over the matter for years now and its plea for help continues to fall on deaf ears.
The residents found the municipal gates locked.
After chanting and singing for a while they then decided to stage a sit-in with the hope that an official might come to address them.
Rhodes Music Radio’s Raymond Mojapelo was there and filed the report below.
Eskom has applied for leave to appeal a high court judgment in favour of the Maluti A Phofung Local Municipality, in the Free State.
On Friday, the Free State Division of the High Court ordered the power utility to immediately lift the attachment of the municipality’s bank account.
Eskom had attached the bank account due to non-payment. The Maluti A Phofung Local Municipality owes the state-owned electricity company R5.4 billion.
In a statement, Eskom says the move was an execution of a 2018 court order and part of the company’s revenue recovery strategy.
“The Municipality’s continuous non-payment of their current account is resulting in further escalation of their overdue debt and poses a serious threat to Eskom’s financial viability and the survival of the utility. The increasing debt owed by Maluti A Phofung forces Eskom to take drastic steps to address this undeniable risk.”
