There can be no doubt that the provision of basic services in many parts of SA is at best inconsistent and at worst, completely collapsed.
Daily, this newspaper tells stories of communities going days or weeks on end without water or electricity. Many others have had to put up with the collapse of road or sanitation infrastructure.
This is partly because of badly managed municipalities, rampant corruption as well as criminal syndicates that raid public infrastructure.
Overwhelmingly, public sentiment is that of justifiable anger, disappointment and, at times, despair over this state of affairs.
However, no amount of threats, intimidation or violence can ever be justified as an expression of such frustrations.
On Monday, residents of Morula View, a small suburb in Mabopane, northern Pretoria, blocked Eskom employees at an industrial area in Ga-Rankuwa, demanding the power utility immediately replace their stolen mini-substation.
It was stolen on August 19, plunging close to 100 homes in Phase 3 into darkness.
Employees told us that the group came into the premises that morning and blockaded all exit points with their cars and demanded to speak to management.
Some of them were brandishing guns, threatening anybody who wanted to leave, employees said.
Public order police and security reinforcements were called in and the workers were freed 12 hours later.
The incident highlights a breakdown of trust between Eskom and the community, for which the power utility should shoulder the lion’s share of the blame.
However, the community’s acts of intimidation, notwithstanding their frustration, can never be acceptable. They entrench a growing practice in our communities where infrastructure service providers are intimidated or attacked, at times even killed, by those lashing out against poor services.
Eskom must be compelled to deliver the service it is mandated to do. Its executives must also find ways to engage more efficiently with communities demanding transparency in the provision of its services.
However, we must also agree that intimidation, threats and violence from communities will not lead us to any solutions. Instead, such behaviour is a slippery slope to anarchy that can only worsen our current challenges.
Lawlessness is self-defeating and can never be justifiable.
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