Soweto power crisis: Residents set to march to Joburg mayor’s office

Residents blocked major routes including the Old Potchefstroom Road between Klipspruit and Pimville on Monday morning complaining about the electricity issue.

One of the protest organisers from the organisation Soweto Parliament, Fika Mbambo, says the protest was a “warm-up” for Tuesday’s march.

“People are without electricity and other houses have been having no electricity for almost two to three months. We had a meeting, and we want to take our petition to the mayor’s office tomorrow. Today it was just like serving a starter, making our points to be heard, tomorrow we are having a very huge march in Soweto, it will be closed in all the intervals,” says Mbambo.

“Tomorrow we will be leaving Soweto at 8am in the morning to Braamfontein.We will have two stops, the main stop is the mayor’s office whereby we will deliver our petition.”

Meanwhile, the City of Johannesburg says its involved in ongoing discussions with Eskom to try and resolve the crisis.

The city's MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services Michael Sun says the anger should be directed at Eskom - and not the city.

“Soweto is largely supplied by Eskom and City Power unfortunately is not involved in the operations or any business decision making of Eskom. In this case, where Eskom requested for a R6000 reconnection fee before they can reconnect residents and provide electricity, neither City Power nor the City of Joburg has any say in this.

“I had a meeting with the acting CEO of City Power and requested that City Power approach Eskom for another meeting so that we can facilitate any engagements between Eskom and Soweto residents that are affected.”

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