Eskom: Not enough Soweto residents buying tokens from legal vendors

Out of 162 529 prepaid customers only 40 192 are purchasing electricity tokens from legal vendors.

This accounts for only 25 percent.

The number is slightly higher in Cosmo City where 43 percent of residents at extension 5 purchase electricity from legal vendors.

"Even though there has been a slight increase in purchasing of electricity from legal vendors in Soweto, the numbers are still of great concern," the power utility said in a statement.

Eskom and Soweto residents have been at loggerheads for several years over the massive debt incurred due to non-paying customers.

On Wednesday, angry residents warned Eskom that they will force the power utility to negotiate with them over the area's lack of electricity.

They claim that certain parts of Pimville and some other parts of Soweto have been without power for over a year.

Some residents believe that they are being punished by Eskom due to the debt owed.

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Meanwhile the power utility vowed to attend to power interruptions across Gauteng.

"Eskom is attending to supply interruptions affecting customers across Gauteng as a result of multiple network faults caused by network overloading, illegal connections, meter bypasses, cable theft, vandalism and unauthorised operations on the electricity infrastructure.

"Although most areas have supply in Gauteng, some parts of Beverly Hills, Cosmo City, and Soweto are experiencing outages," Eskom added.

"In Soweto whilst most areas have supply, customers in Central Western Jabavu, Jabavu, Moroka and Pimville are still affected, and technicians are on site attending to these outages which are as a result of network theft and vandalism and are exacerbated by electricity theft with losses of 76% in Pimville and 79% in Jabavu."