Sand River now has some water supply after seven years

After seven years without running water, the community of Sand River near Hazyview now have water in their taps.

Though most of the households now have some access to water, it must be noted that the water pressure to many taps is poor.

Be that as it may, the community thanked Hazyview Herald for its continuing reporting on the matter, giving the City of Mbombela (CoM) no choice but to address the issue and ensure that the residents are supplied with water.

One of the community members who had been very vocal about the water problem in the area, Vusi Nkosi, said: “We have been waiting for more than seven years to have water in our households since the taps were installed. For a while I thought I was never going to taste water. The worst part is that even the tankers had stopped supplying us with water, and we were supposed to buy it,” he said.

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He said he was aware there wasn’t enough pressure for the water to get to the taps; a temporary solution for many residents was to have water hoses lead directly from their underground pipes, which helped them to get a somewhat stronger flow.

Vusi Nyathikazi thanked the newspaper for its efforts of keeping up the reporting on the water crisis the community was facing.

“We now have water in our households and we are hoping that the minor problems we are facing at the moment will be resolved. We are also calling on the CoM not to take another seven years to resolve the problem, because it’s a matter of installing a better pressure pump.” The taps in this small village had originally been installed just before the local elections in 2016. The CoM’s spokesperson, Joseph Ngala, said the municipality did not just install them without a plan to supply water to the village. It might have taken some time, he said, but the village now has water and he urged the residents to safeguard the infrastructure and make sure that they report any water leaks or damages.

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“The issue of pressure is confirmed to exist. This is due to the shortage of sufficient storage capacity of the old Majika Reservoir. Water is rationed and often the areas at the end of the supply zone suffer with low pressure in their water supply. But we are working on the issue and it will be resolved in due cause,” he said.

Ngala also said the municipality is committed to delivering services to the residents.