Cops save the day for Eskom contractor!

ESKOM has suspended services in the Endlovini area in Khayelitsha.

This after one of their contractors was allegedly held hostage by residents at the weekend.

The incident happened after residents accused Eskom of taking too long to fix the electricity fault in the area.

According to the power utility, their contractor went into the area to remove illegal connections and fix electricity faults, but he was allegedly held hostage by angry residents.

Eskom said the incident happened on Saturday, 12 October and they have decided to withdraw their services from their area.

"Eskom has withdrawn services in Ndlovini, Khayelitsha after one of the company's contractors was held hostage while trying to remove illegal connections in the area. At the time of the incident, the Eskom contractor was working on a transformer overloaded with illegal electricity connections," said Eskom in a statement.

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Residents from the area said they had been without electricity for weeks due to a fault and by the time the Eskom contractor arrived, people were already angry.

A resident said: "People were angry that the technicians seemed like they were interested in disconnecting izinyoka than fixing the electricity problem we had. At the same time, izinyoka were also angry that the technicians were removing their cables.

"Chaos started there and now we're without electricity again; it's just a problem. I think if everyone gets their electricity boxes, we won't be having the izinyoka problem anymore."

Eskom said it would not put the lives of technicians in danger, hence they withdrew services from the area.

Police spokesman Warrant Officer Joseph Swartbooi said the victim didn't open a case but was escorted out of the area by cops from Harare cop shop.