Police recently ripped out all illegal electricity cables that were buried under the ground at Etingulubeni transitional settlement in Emjindini. Barberton Times ran an article on the illegal connection in the September 21 edition. At that time the council was not aware of the situation. 
Last Monday Umjindi municipal workers under the department of electrical services invaded the area to dismantle the illegal connection. Angry habitants of the area verbally abused the workers and threatened to assault them if they ripped up the cables. This resulted in the workers failing to disconnect the cables. 
The next day the police accompanied the workers and they finally succeeded in removing all the illegal cables. 

According to Insp Faizal Essack, the cables were illegally connected from three households at extension 10, phase two, and spread to various shacks in the transitional camp. He said the occupants of the three households were arrested and charged with illegal electricity connection. According to Act 41 of 1987, interfering with electrical apparatus is illegal and could result in legal prosecution. One person was arrested for public violence. All four suspects will appear at the Barberton Magistrate’s Court on December 6. 

Etingulubeni transitional camp is an informal settlement that was established in March this year. Most occupants of the area are those who were removed from single quarters settlement, where they had had access to electricity. An angry Johannes Nkosi, one of the residents, insisted that the council should not have removed the cables because it was not losing any money. He said the electricity was connected from an authorized household. “We are paying the household monthly for using the electricity,” Nkosi said. Some residents claimed that their perishable food, which they kept in fridges, had now been damaged with the disconnection. 

The Umjindi acting directorate of electrical services, Anthony Smith, declined to comment on the matter.

The Gerbera Association finally reached an agreement with the Umjindi municipality and signed a lease agreement for an area in Bland Street to establish a gerbera park.
The public is invited on Saturday, November 19 between 10:00 and 16:00, to meet the members of the association at the park area for a presentation of plans for the park. The area can be entered from Church Street.
Gronovius, a renowned botanist from the Netherlands, established the species gerbera in 1737. It was named after Traugott Gerber who took plant collection excursions mainly to eastern parts of Russia. 
Anton Rehmann discovered a new gerbera species in the former Transvaal and in 1886 Robert Jameson re-discovered the plant on his trip to the goldfields. 
This is where the history of our own Barberton Daisy (Gerbera jamesonii) started. In 2001 a gerbera breeder from Germany, Peter Ambrosius, came to Barberton to see the daisy in its natural habitat. He met Volkmar Seifert and his enthusiastic manner infected the whole town with a love of the daisies. It was decided to start a Gerbera Association in South Africa and it was inauguration the very next year.
Since its inception it has been trying to establish a gerbera park. This dream has now become a reality.
According to Volkmar (president Gerbera Assocation) the planned park will document the hybridisation history of the plant from the original Barberton daisy with all its colour variations, to the latest hybrids. 

A small nursery will be part of the garden. Horticultural courses will soon be offered as well.
Ambrosius, honorary chairman of the association, is retiring and negotiations are underway to bring him out to South Africa. 
“He donated his two gerbera collections and his valuable genetic stock form 45 years of breeding to the association. All this is invaluable for South Africa,” Volkmar said.
The biological collection is a collection of all gerbera species, as they occur in nature in South Africa, Madagascar and Asia. The historical collection represents the hybridisation history of the Gerbera jamesonii with plant material of the first hybridised plants, right up to the latest variety.
“The breeding stock is unique and will form our foundation for further breeding of plant material, which can be used for flower production in South Africa and can be exported all over the world,” Seifert concluded.
For more information contact Volkmar on 082-680-5670 or 013-712-5647 or Stephnie Macauley on 082-923-6823.