For the past two years, residents of Standerton, Sakhile and other towns in the Mpumalanga's Lekwa Municipality have had to endure a double whammy of scheduled power cuts.
Residents must contend with Eskom's national load shedding schedule and a separate internal "load-reduction" programme, meaning they often go without power for 10 hours a day or more.
And they are not alone. Dozens of heavily indebted municipalities implement rotational power cuts above what Eskom demands.
