No service delivery and *******ion

There is an ongoing power outage affecting Tsakane Extension 5, located in the eastern part of Johannesburg. On Saturday, 24 January 2026, a severe thunderstorm occurred, during which lightning struck and disrupted the electricity supply in our area. Following the incident, Eskom technicians attended to the fault and managed to restore power to some households. However, electricity was not restored to several other areas. When residents enquired about the progress, we were informed that repair work was ongoing and that new equipment which was damaged during the storm had been received. Despite these assurances, Eskom employees have not been consistently present on site over the past several days, and the affected households have now been without electricity for over 3 weeks. This prolonged outage and poor service delivery is extremely frustrating, particularly as it occurred through no fault of the residents instead it was due to a natural disaster. To make matters worse, when we request to meet with the management to get answers they agree to this arrangement but never show up.

Moreover, residents were requested to contribute R500 each in order to facilitate the restoration of electricity. Apparently these funds were intended to be handed to the councillor to “talk” with Eskom technicians on residents’ behalf so that the matter could be resolved more quickly. This arrangement appears to constitute an act of BRIBERY. Eskom personnel have reportedly been conducting door-to-door inspections to determine whether households are purchasing electricity. Households found not to be purchasing electricity are allegedly being threatened with a fine of R6,000, purportedly to the restore the power. This approach is both unreasonable and unjustified, as the current outage is unrelated to whether residents are *******ly bridging electricity or purchasing power. If anything, it is households that already have electricity supply that are not purchasing electricity as well. This is absolutely pathetic.