Mr Pieter F Botha, a resident of the Bluegumsport Road, has had enough of Telkom.

He has written a letter to the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Telkom Affairs in parliament regarding Telkom’s poor maintenance of the Telkom line servicing his farm, as well as other farms and businesses along this stretch of road. A copy of the letter was sent to Telkom’s head office in Durban, as well as the Zoutpansberger.

In the letter, he states that the telephone line has been completely out of order for the past three to four months.

“We have not been informed why. Over the past decades, we have had continuous breakdowns that were maintenance related. We have never had theft of telephone wires,” he writes. The fact that Botha points out that it is maintenance related and not due to theft, could be due to Telkom’s excuse that they will not repair services to area where their telephone lines are repeatedly stolen.

“It appears that this ‘mountain line’ cannot be maintained in good repair by your technicians,” Botha states. He urged the portfolio committee to take a look at the telephone accounts starting with numbers 015 517 000 over the past decade or so.

“ … you will see zero calls recovered whenever the line was out of order. I pay year in and year our R200 per month line fees to Telkom mahala but with poor service,” says Botha. He says when he reports that his phone is out of order, he has to do it a few times until it is repaired.

“But very soon it is out of order again,” writes Botha, mentioning that this has been going on for years.

“Clearly there must be a reason for this,” he says.

Botha highlights the fact that the numerous farms and businesses along this road desperately need the telephone lines to conduct their farming and business activities. Many of these farms acquire export earnings for the country which, he states, cannot be neglected.

Botha urges the portfolio committee to see to it that the line is repaired as a matter of urgency and to see to it that they appoint a qualified and able technician to maintain the line.

“If you cannot have it fixed urgently, please let me know why,” Botha states.