BETHAL – Just when residents of Bethal and eMzinoni were breathing a sigh of relief, Govan Mbeki Municipality hit them with newly implemented load shedding schedules.
Early this year Bethal and eMzinoni bared the brunt of additional load shedding and residents were stranded most of the winter without power – sometimes for days and even weeks.
Fears are that powerless days and nights will now be repeated. Besides load shedding, infrastructure, transformers and cables are not made to handle the on and off again of electricity supply.
Residents took to social media to vent their frustration when the new schedules were doing their rounds.
“Our children are writing final exams online. How are they going to manage?” “We should close the N17 at those hours,” said angry residents.
Bethal and eMzinoni Community for Services (Becs) made it clear that they are proceeding with legal action.
Those on the receiving end will be Govan Mbeki Municipality mayor, who recently resigned, and the municipal manager, the mayor and municipal manager of the Gert Sibande District Municipality, the MEC for Corporative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) in Mpumalanga, Eskom Holdings in Johannesburg, and the Minister for Corporative Governance and Traditional Affairs in Pretoria.
According to Mr Ziyaad Dangor, spokesman for Becs, this is the only long term solution for residents and to end the struggles of services not being rendered for which the residents and businesses are paying.
He said the attorneys have already received a notice of intention to oppose the application from GSDM and GMM.
The deadline for opposing the application was the end of October with supporting documentation.
GMM has also since been placed under temporary administration.
“GMM being placed under administration is not affecting our legal case. We are going full steam ahead. “Until today the new administration has not attempted to contact us or our attorneys regarding the legal action.
“Putting GMM under administration does not affect the normal paying public, there are still no services, things are not getting better,” ended Mr Dangor.
Eskom has distanced them from the implemented load shedding and directed the Ridge Times to the concerned municipality.
An email and WhatsApps were sent to the media spokesperson, Mr Benzi Soko for GMM who failed to respond at the time of going to press.
