Residents of Lenyenye took back to protesting after the seven days response letter was not attended to.
The community had been protesting for running water since last week and when they submitted their memorandum but did not get any response thereof, they continued their protest.
On Monday night, the residents took to barricading the entrance of the township with burning tyres and tree brunches.
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The Executive Mayor of the Mopani District Municipality, Pule Shayi; the Mayor of Greater Tzaneen Municipality, Maripe Mangena and the spokesperson of the Mopani District Municipality, Odas Ngobeni took to the township on Tuesday to try and address the residents regarding the complaints they had issued in a memorandum that they felt was not responded to according to their stated grievances.
When addressing the crowd, Shayi explained to them the process regarding filling up the existing boreholes with water.
An issued press release by the municipality’s spokesperson stated that one of the problems is caused by a lot of tampering on the pipeline and as a long term solution, the municipality will be working on laying a steel pipeline from Thabina to Lenyenye.
The issue escalated and on Tuesday night the Maake SAPS were dealing with residents who got wrongfully shot at with rubber bullets.
A source speaking to Mopani Herald stated that he was on his way home when he heard gunshots.
“I had been walking around trying to find a place that was open and after going to three local spots to no avail, I decided to head back home. Just then as I was passing the municipal offices I heard gunshots coming from behind me, little did I know that two had hit me on the back of my shoulder. I quickly rushed to the police station where I found other people there who had also been shot at with rubber bullets waiting to open cases. Some of them were school learners who were rushed to the hospital,” stated the source who asked to remain anonymous.
Herald tried contacting the Maake SAPS spokesperson for comment regarding the shooting of people but at the time of going to press no comment was issued.
The Greater Tzaneen Municipality, Neville Ndlala referred Herald to Odas Ngobeni when asked for comment.
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“We are currently augmenting the water supply through tankering. There is an attempt by certain people with a political agenda to frustrate the process of filling the resevouir with sufficient water, and we are considering opening a case with the police. Eskom had committed to energize the other boreholes, but their work was impeded as well. We are making this appeal to the community of Lenyenye to allow our team to do its work for them to have adequate water supply as per the commitments made by the Executive Mayor,” stated Ngobeni.
