MBOMBELA – After two weeks during which Sembcorp Silulumanzi uncovered a number of illegal water connections along its bulk water suppliers to reservoirs it has established a project to do away with the illegal connections as it is escalating in areas that are under Mbombela Local Municipality.
Recently Mpumalanga News learnt that some residents in those areas that were visited by the company such as Goboza, community members went back to the streets and connected their pipes again even though they knew that what they were doing was illegal.
Some of the residents have threatened that if their illegal pipes were to be disconnected again, they would embark on a violent protest because they can’t live without water.
During the investigation of this matter, a task team from Sembcorp Silulumanzi that is responsible for disconnecting the illegal connections were instructed by angry community members to connect them again, but the team refused.
During the visit, this publication quoted a community member saying: “If they are removing our pipes, how are we going to survive because water is a source of life.”
The head of communication at Sembcorp Silulumanzi, Mr Richmond Jele confirmed there were two places or sections where they knew that community members had re-connected their illegal connections.
“As far as I know, there are two places where we know that community members had installed their pipes again,” he explained.
Jele explained the progress on their disconnections thus:
“Well at this stage, I have stopped with the project because we held a meeting with the members of the mayoral committee of Mbombela Local Municipality because we want to engage with different structures and the community, so we are still waiting for a go-ahead of the project as we want to continue with it, ” he alluded.
The illegal water connection has a bad impact when it comes to disturbing water supply as some communities are left without water. Due to these illegal connections Sembcorp sometimes isn’t able to fill their reservoirs to capacity.
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