Care Centre Fail

Winter is in full swing and I had to go refill a gas bottle for the heater. Driving up to the gas depot, I drove over a number of electrical cables running across the road leading up to the depot on Albertina Sisulu Road. Looking around all I could see was illegal connections everywhere. It is so bad that they are even hanging dangerously close to a children's day care centre at is situated right next to the Princess Squatter Camp. 

No wonder Eskom wants to push the price up for electricity and at the same time refuse to give their employees a pay increase. No wonder there is a potential downing of tools by our electrical monopoly's employees. 

I mean I drove over some live cables, and they run straight into the squatter camp at a dangerously low height. Surely this is a no go area for even the police with all the electrical death traps. God forbid a child should get electrocuted.

Bright Side of Life

Oh well I have to get a more positive outlook it life. Yes I know that I am blessed but I need to live like I am especially when I struggle to find and see the good all around me.

Take for example an old friend came round this afternoon and test rode Anastasiya and he seems happy with her even though her battery is flat and she is not idling correctly but he needs to do the math, while another friend, a lecturer at Wits also wants her. All the while I need Scarlet sold more than Anastasiya but all am getting is con artists contacting me. And as for the electricity, now we can see not all is well is the state of Eskom.

So let’s look on the bright side of life.

In the Dark

So on the third day, after so many Eskom employees have supposed to have come out to reconnect us and fix their mistake, I had to drive around looking for an Eskom employee. Beg with them, and after they phoned the dispatch to check the system that it was an incorrect disconnection, drive them with them to my house so that they can reconnect us. I could no spend another night in the dark.

What does it take to do the job correctly in the first place? Three days with no electricity and so many lies from Eskom where is this country going?

Thethelela

Day three and still no electricity. Eskom’s call centre just escalated our problem for the umpteen time. The excuses we are hearing, no vehicles to go out to check. Time to protest and throw my toys out of the cot.

So I arrived at Lanseria Connections sector to start my sit as the supervisor Sydney Tshehla never answers his phone. Rose, at Lanseria was very helpful, she phoned the Dispatch to find out who was going to rectify our problem but they said that someone went out yesterday, but did not have the tools to fix the problem and simply left. The works order was on hold and no one was allocated to go out today.

WHAT!!!

Does this mean I would have to sit all weekend here until someone could go out to fix our no electricity problem? But Rose was resourceful and managed to find Thethela who was willing to go out and check what the problem was. So Thethela, arrived and saw that potential cable thieves had disconnected the main power lines from the transformer and with this insulated collabsable yellow fiberglass rod, Thethela simply reconnected us.

Three days without electricity and it took a few minutes and we were back on. What happened to the Eskom team who supposed to arrive on Day One just before 10pm? Why didn’t the Eskom team who arrived on Day Two at 11am, have the right tool to reconnect us? Why didn’t he drive 5km to the depot and fetch the right tool that he had somehow forgot? Many questions on the incompetency of Eskom arises yet bonuses are still being paid to the managers.

Three days without electricity, lost five tropical fish but a big thank you to Rose and Thethela who stopped three days becoming six days.

Freedom Day Reflections

Where were you on this day 21 years ago? Can you remember? Most South Africans can as this is Freedom Day where there were long queues of people waiting to cast their first democratic votes. I remember exactly where I was, in Durban.

Reflecting back on the 21 years, what has changed? Oh there goes the power yet again. For 21 years Eskom has been struggling with aging power stations and have nothing to show for the 21 years. They even had to take out two moth balled power stations dating back to the 1960s just to try keep up with their bad planning and little maintenance. Oh well the money had to go to pay the corporate bonuses.

On this Freedom Day, I come across the coal fired Pretoria West Power station sitting idle doing nothing, it was a perfect photograph for my Freedom Day. Reflecting on the 21 years we have come since the first democratic elections, I am excited and yet why am I so sad at the same time? We have done many things right along this journey but at the same time things have fallen apart due to corruption and greed of a few. The poor grow poorer and the rich richer in this new South Africa of ours.

Okay I am getting off the topic of today, doing some research, I found that there are talks to get this over 50 year old power station back up and running again especially for the peak periods when load shedding has become a norm. So as it may look tranquil now, this old lady may come to our rescue and rescue we need indeed.