It’s understood that the power cuts have been mainly due to a faulty substation. This has placed immense pressure on healthcare services and further strained an already ailing municipality.

According to the DA councillor in the Mohokare Local Municipality, Ian Riddle, the power outage has serious implications for service delivery.

The hospital relies on the costly emergency power. Photo supplied

“This means the hospital has been forced to rely on its generator for power, at a great cost. The Free State MEC for Health visited the hospital last week, expressed his shock, and promised to look into the situation. To date, there has been little progress with the hospital, and the surrounding areas are still without power,” said Riddle.

The Free State Department of Health has confirmed the continued reliance on emergency power at Embekweni. Department spokesperson Mondli Mvambi explained that the situation extends beyond the hospital and affects the entire town of Zastron.

He said the hospital has been running with the aid of the generator for the past 90 days, during which the entire town of Zastron was affected by power outages at the grave inconvenience to the Department of Health, whose budgets are supposed to be used for patient care, medicines and food.

The ANC committed itself to improving services. Photo supplied

He added that the MEC of Health had visited the area on 22 April to engage with the municipality. However, Mvambi stressed that resolving the issue falls outside the health department’s mandate, as water and electricity are municipal responsibilities.

The ANC in the Free State recently took political action by removing Mohokare mayor Zingisa Mgawuli. ANC provincial spokesperson, Thabo Meeko, emphasised the party’s commitment to service improvement.

The situation extends beyond the hospital and affects the entire town of Zastron. Photo supplied

“We’ve committed that we are going to do extraordinary political work to ensure that we turn around the situation in our municipalities … That’s the reason why we were elected into power,” Meeko stated. He confirmed the decision to redeploy the mayor. “The ANC decided that the mayor of the Mohokare, comrade Zingisa, must be redeployed.”

Meeko also assured residents that the leadership transition would be handled carefully to avoid further instability in the municipality.

OFM News/Kekeletso Mosebetsi cg