Ratepayers in Riebeeckstad, Ventersburg and Hennenman are completely fed up, and on Monday more than 400 Riebeeckstad residents will be registering grievance against the Matjhabeng Municipality.
This will effectively be the launch of a rate boycott that is expected to wash over to the other affected towns. Residents in Hennenman and Ventersburg have voiced their wish to join the boycott, and meetings to bring this about are scheduled to be held in these two towns next week.
A very successful residents’ meeting was held in Riebeeckstad on Thursday evening.
It was apparent from the meeting that residents across the board have lost respect for and confidence in the mayor and his council, and have no confidence in him and the way in which he has handled the water fiasco. Various towns have been in the grip of severe water shortages, with some towns and residential areas in other towns having been without water for up to two weeks.
Jakes Jooste, chairman of the Welkom Business Forum, says more than 600 residents attended the meeting and 400 residents have already signed dispute forms.
“These forms will be handed in on Monday. As from that moment we have officially declared a dispute and residents will stop paying for services they are not receiving,” he says.
Jooste says the factors causing the water fiasco to boomerang out of control include the messy transition of Bloem Water taking over Sedibeng Water and the perceived responsibilities of who pays for what and who is responsible for ordering chemicals and the other sundries needed to operate Sedibeng.
“Last week Sedibeng in Bothaville (Balkfontein) obtained chemicals from the Sedibeng Water branch in Virginia,” says Jooste.
“When these chemicals are finished sometime this weekend, the water will once again be turned off.
“Loadshedding schedules and the jumps between the different phases of loadshedding are also making it virtually impossible to fill the reservoir at Riebeeckstad. The suburb Riebeeckstad, and the towns Hennenman and Ventersburg have been without water for eight days now,”
Added to this is the discovery of a massive water leak in the pipeline which runs between Riebeeckstad and Hennenman.
“Early on Friday, Sedibeng sent a team to fix the leak. Once this is done water should be restored to these places, but when the chemicals run out, the water will once again be cut off,” says Jooste.
Tshediso Tlali, municipal spokesperson, says the municipality sympathizes with the inconvenience the community of Riebeeckstad and other affected areas have endured with the water being cut off.
“The municipal leadership has engaged with Bloem Water and asked for a reason as to why there has been no water for seven days,” he says.
Tlali says that the municipality has made water tankers available to the affected suburbs and towns, but residents dispute this and report that there is no such arrangement. They say no tankers have been seen in any of the affected areas.
In a statement the DA Matjhabeng says it understands the frustration of residents and the pure lack of respect for the Constitutional right to have access to water that residents have been deprived of.
On Thursday evening a multi-party meeting was held between the mayor and the different parties in Matjhabeng.
The executive mayor indicated that his administration had received no feedback from Bloem Water and had only “discovered” on Friday, 17 November, that operations at the Balkfontein Plant had stopped due to insufficient chemicals.
In a statement the DA noted that the mayor did not seem to think it was a big issue and believed the problem woud be resolved within a day.
The DA says the mayor said he would purchase two water tankers, but these have yet to arrive in Matjhabeng.
The DA confirms that the South African Human Rights Commission has already contacted the Matjhabeng Local Municipality regarding the water crisis.
“However, the speaker, Bheki Stofile, and the mayor, Thanduloxo Khalipha, directed the blame to Bloem Water.
“We would like to note that the problem originates from Bloem Water’s poor management and communication to its customers (Matjhabeng Local Municipality), but also that Matjhabeng senior management as leadership have yet again failed to plan and protect the residents of Matjhabeng,” says the DA.
