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The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality along with the community has launched a petition to address delayed repair times for electrical faults which have led to disruptions, losses, increased crime, and frustration. The main cause of this problem is that Harrismith and Kestell currently only have one vehicle that services both towns and surrounding areas. Our petition is to request a dedicated vehicle for each of the towns.

Kestell residents have to wait unacceptably long periods for electrical faults to be repaired due to the sharing of one vehicle between Harrismith and Kestell. Basic repairs for a pole trip could take hours or even days to correct and this is unacceptable. When repairs are done, in some instances these repairs are not done to standard causing further outages within hours.

Over the last few weeks, the small town has been plagued by electrical outages in specific areas, causing losses, an increase in crime and hardship for residents with the loss of fresh produce. This also negatively affects the local school dormitory, the old age home and the children’s home. Businesses are recording unacceptable losses in income and subsequently economic hardship.

The DA has raised a petition to support the local community in requesting a dedicated vehicle for Kestell and a dedicated vehicle for Harrismith, with the necessary resources to conduct basic service delivery in an efficient manner. The petition will be served in Council and handed to District Mayor Connie Msibi and the new Mayor of Maluti-A-Phofung Municipality, Masechaba Mosia-Lekaje.

We will continue to serve our rural communities and assist in ensuring that our municipalities are held accountable for Basic Service Delivery.

This petition can be found at: https://forms.gle/7UbrRmVWED3BqCXQ7

Issued by Bea Campbell-Cloete - DA Councillor Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality