Mogale City water crisis now critical

In the past month the water crisis in Mogale City has reached gigantic proportions, Krugersdorp News reports.

On all fronts, from residential to business, consumers have expressed deep resentment at being victims of continuous water disruptions, stating that the municipality was failing to honour its constitutional mandate. Residents see the withdrawal of the free six kilolitres of water to non-indigent households and increased step-up tariffs as a slap in the face.

For a decade, unplanned water disruptions have battered communities without any clear explanation of the cause from the local council. Its detachment from responsibility and accountability has frustrated the community. Council has apparently made no attempt to communicate the root cause for the unscheduled water outages to consumers or public representatives. Instead, misinformation and disinformation have shocked consumers and added to their discomfort. Burst water pipes – an average of five a week – dysfunctional water meters and inefficient pre-paid water meter projects have continually accompanied outages.

The local DA said in a statement to the Krugersdorp News that the council’s slow reaction to water crises and complaints throughout the municipality was alarming.

“Against this background – unhealthy speculation, rumour, accusations, and allegations prevail. What are we really talking about? What are the hard facts? The answer – the water network in Mogale is so vulnerable that the slightest glitch triggers network failure. The recent Eikenhof transformer blow-out led to weeks of water disruptions, pipe bursts, water leaks, and low pressure, and [the situation] still continues.”

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In grappling with inarticulate reports from the council, the statement indicated that no level of truth had been found about the root cause for the vulnerability of the system, and no plan of action to resolve systemic water issues had been compiled.

The statement continued: “It’s notable that during the DA’s nine months as the executive in 2016/ 2017, there were no water outages. In fact, Rand Water and the then premier Nomvula Makonyane lauded the council as the only municipality in Gauteng to have achieved the 15% reduction necessitated by the drought.

“We cannot keep fooling the citizens of the city. The council’s recklessness and disregard for consumers must be exposed.

“In performing its essential oversight role, we have made it our duty to unravel the misinformation and to clear the fog. We cannot allow this situation to continue tearing at our communities. We have conducted our own in-depth investigations. We believe the council is prioritising its own needs rather than those of the citizens. Being opaque and non-transparent allows it to follow its own agenda. This is worrisome when one considers that the budget exceeds R3 billion.”

The search for the reasons for the repeated water crises and network vulnerability has exposed multiple layers of concern and numerous facts were obtained during a deep search of council and portfolio agendas (finance and infrastructure).

The Krugersdorp News will publish a follow-up report on this matter, delving deeper into the budget constraints of this dilemma in next week’s edition.

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