“Telkom holds church to ransom”

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa’s Tshitandani congregation in Louis Trichardt accuses Telkom of holding the church ransom. This follows Telkom’s delay in removing a telephone pole that is stopping the further construction of the church building at this stage.

According to the church members, they had requested Telkom to remove the pole and cables to allow them to resume with the building project. The congregation’s chairperson, Mr Jonas Ramahala, said that Telkom agreed to their request, but they had still not removed the pole. “It was then that we decided to continue with our building project, because we had already secured contractors,” he said. “So part of the church building runs around the pole.”

He said that the building could not be completed now, because the pole is still stuck inside the church. “It has become impossible for us to erect the roof.”

Ramahala said that the church had since sent more letters to Telkom’s Makhado office, who kept on giving them empty promises. The church’s first request was submitted to Telkom in October 2015 in Louis Trichardt, where a Telkom official got a team together to do an inspection of the site. “The team that visited the site in November 2015 told us we should give them three months to get the pole relocated,” he said. “Three months meant that by end of February 2016 the pole would have been relocated. But that did not happen.”

So far, it is the church’s feeling that Telkom is not being considerate “and in actual fact, standing between us and the completion of our project.”

“Their action is also resulting in the church and its contractor (Makhado Roof Trusses) suffering tremendous losses,” he said. “The trusses that were erected have been exposed to bad weather and are going to have to be replaced in order to ensure a quality roof structure. Our contractor has suffered losses in that they had to uproot their team before completion and this means that when the pole is removed they have to bring back their team at additional costs.”

The media relations senior specialist at Telkom, Mr Pynee Chetty, said that line pole removal was not as small a thing as the church might think. “The removal of the pole and line should have been effected before the construction could take place,” he said. “However, as Telkom, we do not just remove the poles and lines because the church had asked us. We need the permission of the local Council, who must also direct us about any possible new line routes,” he said.

He said that the church, after seeking permission from the Council to build the church, should have then properly informed all other parties about the new project.

Chetty stated that such a line relocation would also affect other businesses who were using Telkom’s communication services. “Just imagine if we were to just remove the pole and line without the Council’s consent, and all other clients of ours were affected and the Council had not made provision for another possible route for us, wouldn’t our clients in that area suffer more?” he said.

Date:04 December 2016

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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