Komani is a disaster. Fix it.

LAST night an estimated 68 000 people in Komani, the lead town of the amalgamated Enoch Mgijima municipality, went to bed in the dark.

There was no municipal power for heating and cooking food and no television, and these are only the basic disruptions caused by two serious blasts which knocked out electrical transformers yesterday morning.

What about more life-threatening services for the frail and vulnerable – those in emergency rooms and ICUs, who depend on power to stay alive?

Managers and leaders in that collapsing municipality are, no doubt, municipality-proofed with alternative power supplies, such as generators and independent water harvesting tanks.

But of the 68 000 residents, few have the resources to withstand the seemingly unending string of disasters which are shaking the town and outlying areas.

Ezibileni and even Ilinge – 14km out of Komani – were thrown into darkness.

How did this happen? On the face of it, according to the bunkered municipal spokesman Fundile Feketshane, the explosions were caused by . . . the people.

He said it was residents all plugging in their appliances at the same time that overloaded the system, causing the two transformers to fritz and blow.

This is very convenient, and anyone following the careening descent of the Enoch Mgijima municipality into anarchy over the past few years will battle not to take this comment with a pinch of salt.

It was instructive that Feketshane chose to speak to the media and to inform the public about the outage yesterday by taking to Facebook.

This beggars belief and shows breathtaking lack of responsibility towards the public.

Back in November 1984, when people were being roused to oppose another disaster and tragedy – the attacks on life and limb by the apartheid police – a way was found to inform and mobilise thousands of people to attend the funeral of the Queenstown massacre victims. This was despite banning and suppression of communication.

Now, in 2018, Feketshane, the lonely squeak of leadership in that town, turns to the dubious and disconnected medium of Facebook to advise and inform the confused, powerless people about a power outage which, if not rectified overnight, will see water reservoirs emptying. If the electric pumps are not pushing more water into those tanks, they will run dry.

A town that sees its water supply suddenly reduced to nothing is in deep trouble.

Without water, the clock of survival itself starts ticking ever louder.

If, by the time the sun rises this morning, there is no fix, where the only government “voice” to be heard in silent, cold, suffering Komani is a desultory Facebook post or two, then trouble is at hand.

The provincial – and national – leadership need to get to Komani as fast as their planes and executive cars can carry them there.

Now is the time for the new ANC to move it, to get in there – and act with new urgency.

Komani is not that far. Like the general election, it is just around the corner