KNYSNA NEWS - The occupants of five homes in the tiny forest village of Bibby's Hoek have been struggling to cope without electricity since 3 April, and their struggle has intensified now that winter is beginning to set in.
Bibby's Hoek is about 4km from the town of Rheenendal, outside Knysna.
A resident of the village, Corne Davidson, who is acting as a representative of the affected families, said that, on 3 April, an Eskom employee was seen cutting a cable conveying electricity to the five homes.
"Two ladies saw him doing this," Davidson said.
He said in total there were only eight homes in Bibby's Hoek and its suburb of Braamerskraal.
The five homes without electricity were in Braamerskraal, and the three others, connected to the power grid via a separate cable, still had electricity.
Davidson said occupants of the Braamerskraal homes had included employees of a forestry company, which had deducted payments for electricity from their salaries.
The company had handed over control of Bibby's Hoek and its environs to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) when it ceased operating in the area.
Since then, the occupants of four of the five Braamerskraal homes had not had a billing system through which to pay for electricity. One of them had a prepaid electricity meter, but that home too had been without power since the cut-off on 3 April.
"The residents don't know who to pay for electricity," Davidson said.
"We can't keep perishable food in our fridges anymore, and it's hard for us to live without electricity."
Among the residents of the five homes were three children who attended school in Rheenendal.
Eskom and the DFFE have been approached for comment.
Read more on this in next week's Knysna-Plett Herald.
‘We bring you the latest Garden Route, Hessequa, Karoo news’
