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The DA in North West’s legal counsel today served papers on Eskom to resolve the entity’s persistent unlawful action which has prolonged the electricity crisis in Lichtenburg. See the court application here, here and here.

Lichtenburg residents and businesses, many of them direct Eskom customers, have today endured 23 days of a sustained electricity blackout, suffering financial losses and placing lives, livelihoods, and the economic viability of the town at risk.

In a week of evolving events since our first letter of demand, the DA and our legal representatives have exhausted every avenue to engage Eskom constructively and to secure its undertaking to energise both transformers that supply electricity to the Lichtenburg community.

A DA letter sent on Friday, 11 August 2023, urging Eskom to resume electricity supply went unanswered.

On Monday, 14 August 2023, our legal counsel sent a letter of demand to Eskom. This letter remained unanswered.

On Tuesday, 15 August 2023, our legal counsel submitted another letter of demand after it became evident that Eskom is trying to circumvent the risk of being held in contempt of court following a Mahikeng High Court judgement in 2017. The court order allows for the suspension of electricity supply to the town for maintenance purposes only.

Eskom devised a plan to prolong the reduced bulk electricity supply to Lichtenburg by switching on Transformer 2 (the replacement unit) as per our earlier demands but then switched off Transformer 1 which was operational, under the pretense that Transformer 1 needed urgent repair. This letter also remains unanswered.

Late Tuesday night, legal counsel submitted a final letter to Eskom reading into record the outcome of a meeting between the entity, the Ditsobotla Local Municipality, SALGA, the North West Department of GOGHSTA, and the National Department of COGTA where again the issue of non-payment to the Ditsobotla bulk-electricity account of more than R1 billion was discussed without any commitment to restore electricity supply immediately. Eskom had until 10:00 Wednesday morning, 16 August 2023, to respond, but this letter went unanswered.

Despite the adverse impact of the ongoing electricity supply suspension in Lichtenburg and the violation of the rights of residents, Eskom dragged its feet in bringing repairs and there is no guarantee that the transformer will be switched on once repaired.

It has become apparent that Eskom’s strategy has always been to exploit the vandalised transformer and the continued suspension of bulk electricity supply as a prolonged debt recovery strategy that the Constitutional Court held to be unconstitutional and unlawful.

Eskom was able to resume bulk electricity supply to residents by at least Friday, 11 August 2023, but chose instead to inflict more harm on the lives and livelihoods of residents and threaten the viability of businesses as a bargaining chip to collect payment.

When it became clear that Eskom has no intention to have the alleged repairs done or to do so with the urgency that the Lichtenburg residents deserve, the DA proceeded to finalise court papers and will now see Eskom in court.

We have requested the High Court for urgent access, and we hope that the court will accommodate our urgent application, however, the preliminary court date is set for 10:00 on Thursday, 24 August 2023.

Issued by Leon Basson MP - DA North West Provincial Leader