Herman du Preez, a farmer from the North West, plans to file a lawsuit against Eskom over the mass deaths of his broiler chicken stock, which he claims were caused by rampant loadshedding.
North West chicken farmer blames loadshedding for mass broiler deaths
As reported by several media outlets, Du Preez lost more than 40 000 broilers in one of his irrigation hubs and according to the disgruntled farmer, this is directly linked to Eskom’s continued failure to deal with increased rotational power cuts.
In fact, Du Preez explained, his broiler stock’s fate was sealed back in December 2022 when one of the transformers feeding power to the Coligny-Putfontein line broke down.
Eskom replaced the faulty transformer, which, according to Du Preez, outputted 380V, with an unreliable 186V line that “went better for a while but the voltage in these lines is far too low.”
“Where we usually work with a 380 V line, there is only 186 V on the line, which meant that we could only irrigate our hubs alternately, and our operations were significantly curtailed,” Du Preez explained.
Video footage of the broiler mass deaths site was posted on social media by ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba, who blasted the government for its failure to deal with loadshedding.
“When we start paying R300 plus for a chicken, at least we will know why,” Mashaba wrote.
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According to reports, Du Preez may seek R2 million in damages from Eskom over the broiler mass deaths.
“We try to make an honest way of living for our children and us while we create jobs, but then the state institution comes and adds more adversity to our existing problems.” the farmer added.
Eskom hopes to ‘ease’ loadshedding in coming days
The looming lawsuit comes three days after Eskom announced the impending return of 14 power generators to its fleet.
Following a week of Stage 6 loadshedding, the state-owned utility revealed that due to several positive developments in its generation division, rotational outages would alternate between Stage 4 and Stage 5 from Wednesday, 18 January 2023.
The national electricity supplier did warn, however, that “there is a high degree of uncertainty associated with this and that these changes will only be possible in their entirety if the units return to service as planned.”
“Changes in the stages of loadshedding can therefore occur at short notice, due to the inherent unreliability of the coal power station fleet,” the utility warned.