Civil rights organisation AfriForum has laid a culpable homicide complaint against acting State-owned Eskom CEO Matshela Koko, after a woman was electrocuted while walking on her way home through open veld close to the informal settlement Blikkiesdorp, near Grabouw, in the Western Cape, last month.
AfriForum said the woman had stepped onto an open electrical cable that was connected illegally between a lamp pole and a corrugated iron house.
“After a visit to Blikkiesdorp, I am astonished that there aren’t more such accidents. Electricity is being relayed directly from lamp poles to houses with common wire – those used to put up fences. These wires criss-cross one another and some even stretch along directly on the ground,” AfriForum Eastern Cape provincial coordinator Thomas van Dalen said.
He noted that the matter has also been brought to the attention of the Office of the Premier of the Western Cape.