Cover up on blackouts?
June 14 2007 at 11:39AM
By Heinz de Boer
The beleaguered Durban Electricity Department has again been the target of severe internal criticism as disgruntled employees break their silence on worsening conditions at the major electricity distributor.
As private hospitals in desperation prepare to install their own electricity supplies, groups of electricians and other technical staff have formed small committees to liaise with the media.
Already under pressure to deal with the dozens of faults reported each day, the unhappy staff say they are now also the targets of angry residents who blame them for the blackouts.
Those who defy their colleagues and work overtime at lower rates have, meanwhile, also complained of intimidation and threats to their lives.
Electricity staff have also lifted the lid on what goes on in the telephonic complaints department, saying workers manning the telephones regularly lie to consumers to "cover up" the real causes of the outages.
In many cases, Eskom is blamed for supplying low voltage, when council-owned equipment or staff shortages are responsible, electricity workers said.
The same department has also come under fire from politicians, who have threatened to phone senior electricity management staff to report blackouts.
DA councillor Rory Macpherson, who has actively campaigned for sweeping reforms at Durban Electricity, said he had fielded numerous complaints over the reporting call centre.
"If people cannot get through or get proper answers, they then turn to us as councillors. We should then be able to directly contact management at 3am in the morning so they can share the pain of the consumer," Macpherson said.
Durban Electricity has, however, denied the allegations, saying it was the "first they had heard" of controllers being untruthful to the public.
"If this is happening it's definitely not on. We continually strive to give as much factual information to our clients. It is sometimes difficult to predict when a fault will be repaired, but we always try and update people who phone in," said deputy head of electricity in customer service Sewraj Harilal. But staff say there is a definite cover-up to hide growing dissatisfaction with Durban Electricity and city management.
According to insiders, a major change in conditions of service, a breakdown of trust between unions and staff, together with old equipment, is to blame for the recent spate of blackouts.
The staff further accused senior management of not incentivising critically-skilled staff to stay in the department, and said management was putting electricians' lives in danger by making them repair already old equipment.
The industry norm is for cables that have been spliced more than three times to be replaced, but Durban staff claim some cables are often joined up to six or seven times, making it susceptible to faults.
"Many of the staff feel their allowances and money that should be spent on the Electricity Department is going towards building the new stadiums. There are no incentives for skilled people. The industry standard is for electricians to get about R16 000 a month. Durban pays a starting salary of R10 200," the insider said. "So people who've been with the department for 30 years are now leaving and others are refusing to work overtime."
Head of Durban Electricity Sandile Maphumulo was reluctant to comment on the allegations. He labelled the insiders "cowards", and called on them to rather report their grievances to management.
"I wouldn't want to give any benefit to comments made by faceless people," he said.
This article was originally published on page 2 of Daily News on June 14, 2007
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