Chronicle Editor
Melissa, Parktown
I read with joy reports that our country was set to clear its arrears with Mozambique and South Africa in order to revive a trilateral agreement with the neighbouring countries as part of immediate-term solutions to stabilise local power supplies.
There is now light at the end of the tunnel.
However, workers at Zesa Holdings should not spoil our optimism. They should realise that it is no longer business as usual and rise to the occasion.
One gets the feeling that some of them only perform their duties after pocketing bribe money. As an example, I can illustrate this with an observation: There was a huge gum tree at our neighbour’s house in Parktown, which was interfering with power lines. That was early last year.
We literally begged the utility’s workers to temporarily remove the lines so that we could cut the tree without endangering our lives. They finally removed them after some months of begging but we were surprised when they went away with the lines.
After cutting the tree we notified the workers, hoping that they would come and place the lines back in position to facilitate connections but they started dilly-dallying, giving contradicting excuses.
So up to now nothing has been done but strangely enough individuals who claim to have links with our depot continue visiting us saying they can fix the power lines for us, provided we can give them a few US dollars.
We refuse to give in to corruption and hope that one day justice will prevail.
Bongani Ndlovu