Ward 12 councillor, Sybrandt de Beer, told the Herald that the recent protest by employees of Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality has greatly contributed to the dry taps. The employees were protesting over non-payment for overtime. “For the past five months we have been having water problems, but we would always get water restored after some time, but in the past two weeks since the strike, it has been worse.
“We believe the problem is sabotage, we discovered that there is tampering with water valves, someone or some people intentionally close the valves so we don’t have water. I personally did an investigation and found eight valves closed and with the employees being on strike, we could not find any help from the municipality,” he said. He also said he does not understand why the reservoirs are not filled to a level that can supply water with ease.
Also read: Service delivery protests cause major disruptions
De Beer demanded that the municipality sort out the labour issues with the employees. He also demanded that Lepelle Northern Water (LNW) raise the water levels to which they fill reservoirs which should enable water supply without disruptions. Although the employees have returned to work, he said the community is still left without help. He said calls to the call centre to report problems, go unanswered. A daycare centre teacher told the Herald that their work is at a standstill because of the shortage of water.
“We can’t dedicate our time to teaching our learners because all of our time is devoted to looking for water. We don’t have water for flushing toilets, washing hands before and after meals and that is hazardous to ourselves and the little ones,” she said. Meanwhile, Hannie Geldenhuys, manager at Bouganvilla Frail Care Centre, said her centre is fortunate to have two Jojo tanks which come in handy for their residents. She also said that the municipality does provide water tankers when taps are dry for longer periods.
During load shedding they are faced with the problem of not being able to pump water into their facility, she said. “We are forced to carry buckets around and that makes our work difficult as we are constantly changing the nappies of our patients and we need water to clean them,” she said. In September LNW reported on their Facebook page that theft and vandalism of a transformer and electrical cables feeding the Bataleur reservoir and booster station in Phalaborwa supplying extensions 8 and 9, contributed to the lack of water supply.
