One morning a month ago, I woke up to find my house without electricity. My first thought was that there was loadshedding in the neighbhourhood. But electricity had not returned by the end of the day. Upon checking with my neighbours, it was confirmed that electricity had been restored to the rest of the houses in the estate. The City of Johannesburg advised that I contact Eskom directly.
For two days, I made calls and sent emails – all of which went unanswered. By that point, I had sent my meat supply to my grandmother in Soweto to keep it frozen. I couldn’t cook. I didn’t have a gas stove but had bought one for my family, who experience loadshedding far more than me.
In April, the Centre for Sociological Research and Practice at the University of Johannesburg released a report titled “Energy racism: The electricity crisis in South Africa”, which details how Eskom is engaged in racist policies that target black working-class areas with load reduction. Townships experience more severe and longer spells of loadshedding – and are targets of load reduction even when households and businesses pay for electricity. It’s a discussion for another day.
After my frustrations with failing to reach Eskom, I contacted a friend of mine who works for the power utility in East London, seeking advice. His response was stunning: “Malaika, those calls will never be answered, those emails will never be read and that chatbox is a robot that no-one in Eskom pays attention to.
"My advice to you, as a senior employee in Eskom, is to go straight to Megawatt Park [Eskom headquarters] and cause a scene. Demand that a technician be sent to your house and tell them that you’re not leaving without the person driving behind you.”
After contemplating it, I drove to Megawatt Park but was redirected to a customer care centre in Morningside. The woman who assisted me was professional and I went home satisfied that a technician would be sent out. When this hadn’t happened by the following day, I returned and was given his mobile number.
The man eventually came and realising that I needed a new meter, bridged my electricity temporarily and supposedly ordered one. I finally had electricity. Weeks went by. Then one day, a neighbour’s power was cut and an electrician was sent out.
Upon seeing him parked outside the gate, I assumed he was coming to my house. He explained that he wasn’t. Still, I explained my situation to him: an Eskom technician temporarily bridged electricity in my house. I needed the issue resolved as every time electricity went out, I wasn’t sure if it was loadshedding or me being disconnected.
He advised me to call his colleague who had been assigned my case. I did so and the colleague informed me that the only way I could get a meter quickly is to “buy cooldrink”. This is a term meaning to pay a bribe. The technician before me, Kenny, was stunned and advised me to do no such thing. He took over my case and has since installed the new meter.
The truth is, had I not met Kenny, I would’ve paid the bribe. Having been without electricity for a week was a nightmare. Due to a medical condition, I rely on an electrical nebuliser to stabilise my breathing (something I explained to Eskom in my email).
Furthermore, it was expensive to have no electricity as I had to eat out at restaurants so that I could work and charge my powerbank there. I was taking cold showers. I wasn’t prepared to go through that again. If resolving the issue required paying a bribe to an Eskom technician, I was going to do it, because when my heart starts palpitating and my chest constricts, and I’m struggling to breathe, my first thought isn’t on the immorality of paying a bribe for a public service, it’s on plugging my nebuliser into the electrical socket and breathing.
I want to be a law-abiding citizen, but living in a country where corruption is so absolute challenged my morality. And in the end, I chose my life.
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