We are a community that have been plague...

Asked by James on 05-12-2022 17:42:13
Question posted in the General Law category relating to Gauteng

We are a community that have been plagued with unplanned power outages for many years now. Just for 2022 we have recorded over 40 unplanned outages ranging from a few hours to nearly a week without electricity. Everytime this has happened we never get an explanation about the reason for the outage nor the remedy. the municipality keeps telling us that we have very old outdated infrastructure that needs to be replaced but they never replace it.

We have sent countless requests to the ward councillors and MMCs as well as the mayor to address our concerns, give feedback and share plans of action to remedy the situation. Every request has been ignored.

We have recently learned that the municipality discriminates against suburbs based on social standing. For affluent or wealthy suburbs they offer 24 hour support and "standy" restoring power within a short period but where they classify the suburb as "low income" they only offer office hour support.

The countless unplanned outages together with the planned outages (loadshedding) has cost the suburb's residents enormous losses, appliances damaged, food spoilt, loss of income etc.

We want to know if and how we can approach the courts to assist us to remedy the problems.

We only want the municipality to fix the broken infrastructure which will significantly reduce the unplanned outages or alternatively we want to be reimbursed for the losses we suffer due to the municipality's inability to perform their duties and deliver service which we pay for.

We just need to understand what would be required to initiate a class action law suit.

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