By: Matshediso Selebeleng

Residents of Tzaneng in the Northern Cape took to the streets over the weekend to protest prolonged electricity outages that, they say, now last for days at a time. By Saturday, the community had gone four consecutive days without electricity and water, prompting residents to blockade roads with stones in a bid to draw attention to their plight. Residents claim repeated attempts to contact their ward councillor have been unsuccessful. When they eventually managed to get hold of the councillor, they were allegedly told that Eskom employees had already knocked off for the day. “We couldn’t reach the councillor, and when we finally did, we were told that Eskom employees had probably knocked off since it was Saturday. But this electricity problem did not start today; it has been happening for a very long time, and there seems to be no one willing to help us,” said resident Mosimanegape Moagi. He said the outages have had devastating consequences for households. “We are sitting in the dark, our food has gone bad, and no one is coming to our rescue. Even when we try to find out what the problem is, we are never given clear answers about when it will be fixed,” Moagi added. According to Moagi, the electricity cuts initially followed the load-shedding schedule for the area before becoming increasingly erratic and prolonged. “The power would go off in the morning, come back later in the evening for about three hours, then switch off again and only return whenever,” he said. Residents said they are exhausted by what they describe as a constant struggle for basic service delivery from the municipality. They stressed that restoring electricity is critical for children to return to normal school hours. Parents say learners have been sent home early since the start of the academic year due to the lack of electricity and water at schools. Julia Morolong, whose child attends Tselancho Intermediate School, said the situation has disrupted learning. “The children leave in the morning and come back around 12:30 because there is no water and electricity. The only time they can stay a bit longer is when we take buckets of water to the school so they can drink, but we can’t do that with electricity,” Morolong said. Residents also complained about confusion over responsibility for the power supply, saying technicians deployed to assist often claim they are limited in what they can do because the area receives electricity from Vryburg, despite being closer to Kuruman. At the time of publication, the municipality had not responded to requests for comment.