North West municipality shifts blame as residents protest over water shortage

Mokgola residents embarked on a second protest on Friday after a failure by Ngaka Modiri Molema district municipality to live up to their promises of restoring water supplies.

The North West community took to the streets for the first time on 8 August.

The new protest, attended by at least 200 people, began in the morning after a failure by a ward councillor, Petrus Mokgatlhe, to attend a meeting called by a section of the community which has been without water for weeks.

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Residents claimed the councillor ignored them, and instead went to attend a council meeting.

The community demanded to see the councillor who had to be called by the members of the Saps before traffic could be allowed to flow as usual. He arrived in the afternoon and addressed the aggrieved residents.

Mokgatlhe gave assurances that a technical team was on the site to ensure that water was restored for the entire community – but the protesters were still unhappy.

“Why should we have to protest before we could have water, a basic right to everyone? Every time we have to close the road for innocent people because of your poor leadership,” said one protester, Kelebogile Moiloa.

“I can survive without electricity but not without water, hence I use more than R1,000 monthly to buy water while I am unemployed.

“I do not like being involved in protest but that is the only language understood by our government,” said another, Mmaipeleng Kale.

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The protesters claim to have had water challenges since 2006, when their district municipality took its legislative mandate of being a water authority.

Residents claim water only reach them for less than a week after a protest.

If they do not protest the municipality does not respond as quickly as possible.

“I am not happy with the municipality’s service delivery. Their solutions are temporary,” said Buang Katametsi, another protester.

The municipality cited infrastructure vandalism, sharing water with livestock, and population growth as challenges to provide reliable and clean water.

“As a district, we are experiencing some challenges such as community sharing water with livestock, Eskom theft cables on the rise, new settlements and a high rate of illegal connection,” district municipality spokesperson Lehlogonolo March said.

“Currently, we have appointed an engineer to conduct groundwater assessment by checking the demand against the current supply,” March said.

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