Farmers silenced by Telkom
2008-08-28
FARMERS in the Paardeberg region have been cut off from the rest of the world for more than a week now, after copper thieves once again got away with kilometres of telephone wires. They were assured by Telkom that the lines would be repaired by Sunday. On Monday, Telkom informed residents of the area that they had now only established where the lines had been stolen and that they would first have to measure the distance of copper wiring needed and order it. This then puts farmers out of business for at least another week. One farmer, Mike Orpen, said that this was becoming unacceptable. “We are running businesses and if people phone us and we do not answer our phones, then they think that we are ignoring them. “Telkom does not even have the courtesy to have an answering system in place to inform people when phoning this area that the lines are down.”Telkom lines being stolen in rural areas is nothing new. But farmers who rely on this service complain that they are left for days on end without crucial communication services. And when Telkom replaces the copper wire, it is stolen again.“We have had this problem for years, but Telkom refuses to take the obvious route of replacing copper with optic-fibre.” Telkom is aware of the problem. “It costs Telkom a lot of money and time to replace the cables. Even more depressing is the anguish suffered by our customers, both residential and business, who are cut off from the rest of the world when telephone lines go down. “We therefore appeal to the public to call our crime-stop number 0860 124 000 and help stop the escalating problems of cable theft.”
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