Lurnay Tshabalala-Mavuso | Senior Reporter | News/Current Affairs | 26 July 2024
A TRAGIC NIGHT for Phumzile and her family as their rented shack burned to ashes last night in Tsakane Extension 8. Phumzile has a young baby boy who is about 4 - 5 months and her husband who is living with her and her baby in the shack that suddenly burned down without any knowledge of what started the fire.
"I don't know what has happened because I was outside the gate and I was very much shocked when I saw flames coming out of my shack. I started to shout for help and people came out in numbers with their buckets and helped to put the fire out." , says Phumzile.
Not only has Phumzile and her family lost their home, they have lost precious possessions, clothing, food and mostly their ID's and passports. Phumzile as shocked as she was, she stood in front of a place that she called home and watched it burn to the ground and told Tsakane Informer that, she is clothed in nothing but sadness as she has no idea what happened and what started the fire. What hurt her mostly is that this happened while her husband was not home.
"I am very much grateful to the community for trying their level best to put the fire out", says Phumzile to Tsakane Informer. The community availing themselves for Phumzile shows that indeed the spirit of Ubuntu still exists even in these changed and modern times. Where people could have minded their own businesses, but they chose to leave their warm homes and helped out a fellow community member and neighbour with buckets in their hands trying so hard to put out blazing flames which destroyed a place Phumzile and her family called a home.
"There has been a problem with electricity around our area for a very longtime and I think when electricity kicked back, it kicked back with so much power and probably that's what caused the fire. Even with our transformer box, it always causes problems for us and sometimes we can go days without electricity. Though I am very sorry to Sis Phumzile and her family for their loss, and I am also proud of the community for coming out in numbers to try help Sis Phumzile and her family with the fire.", says a member of the community.
I believe that we can all agree that Eskom has many too much incompetence when it comes to service delivery because people who are underprivileged and unemployed like Sis Phumzile have to become victims of homes on fire all because Eskom is too busy to pay attention to people of small communities like Tsakane Extension 8 when they call and cry about their transformer substations giving them problems, that they would spend days and weeks without having electricity. This is indeed a call for concern for the local municipality and the government at its fullest capacity, because people are starting to lose interest in voting because the counsellors they vote for end up disappointing them at the end of the day.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A DONATION TO PHUMZILE AND HER FAMILY, do not hesitate to contact Tsakane Informer via email : mytsakaneinformer@gmail.com