It was clearly not an auspicious beginning for the new administrator of the Lekwa Municipality since a power outage had residents gnashing their teeth since Tuesday, 9 June.
The area in front of the Standerton Town Hall was cordoned off on Monday, 7 June when Mr Johann Mettler took over the reigns of the municipality.
Police vehicles and the traffic department were on standby.
No electricity interruptions were noted in mid-town during the visit of the representatives from Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA).
National government was represented by the deputy minister of CoGTA, Mr Obed Mapela, deputy minster of finance, Dr David Mkhondo and deputy minister of defence and military veterans, Mr Thabang Makwetla.
The delegation included provincial MECs for finance and cooperative governance.
According to a media statement of 7 June, Lekwa has been experiencing perennial challenges which compromised its effectiveness and efficiency.
The provincial executive’s mandatory efforts did not bear any fruit.
Astral Operations Limited’s now well-known court case in terms of section 139 (7) of the Constitution for the national government to intervene was mentioned.
The Local Government Municipal Finance Management Act 2003 came into effect.
Cabinet resolved on 12 May to dissolve the municipal council, making it a first for national government to intervene at a local municipality.
The statement went on to say that this intervention is expected to place Lekwa’s financial affairs on a sound footing, and ensure municipal services such as electricity and water are provided in a sustainable manner.
These words rang hollow when the communications department of the Lekwa Municipality notified the community on 9 June on load-shedding schedules.
After Eskom implemented stage 4, Lekwa introduced their internal schedule since 55NMD is still in place.
The community was requested to use electricity sparingly while the municipality aligns the schedules.
The notice said Sub A was completely vandalised and municipal employees were threatened.
Wards 5 and 6 were affected while the vandalised components are procured and replaced.
Lekwa apologised for the inconvenience.
A fault on Eskom supply to Sub A was identified early on Thursday, 10 June and the communications department said only one supply was on.
Sub B was switched on to get the water works up and running.
Fault-finding was done on transformer 11 and the rest of town was to be off until the problems with the second supply were sorted out.
This was done to prevent supply tripping.
Electricity supply was restored to all areas at 11:33 on 10 June when the problem was resolved. Taking into consideration internal load shedding, businesses in Sub B were running their generators full-throttle.
Wards 3, 5 and 6 were without power.
The Standerton Advertiser has scheduled a meeting with the new administrator for Monday, 13 June at 12:00 and was at the time of going to press, unable to give feedback on his views.
The newspaper however, spoke to several residents and a businessman from Sakhile the past week.
The businessman mentioned that power outages are ruining his enterprise.
Rioting also occurred in Sakhile the past week. Articles on unrest at the Meyerville-bridge and Secunda Road are elsewhere in the newspaper.
