Public swimming pool transformed into ‘human waste(land)’

Residents posted their childhood memories and youthful days spent at the municipal swimming pool on Facebook this past week. This was sparked by residents noticing that vagrants and beggars have entered the swimming pool premises. The Vryheid Herald investigated the current state of the swimming pool and the journalists were horrified. The stench is unbearable, with the sight and smell of human faeces making it almost impossible to enter this place of ‘proud and joyful memories of yesteryear’. Besides the human excrement, the area is overgrown with weeds and grass, and the buildings are dilapidated. The pool itself is half-filled with ‘rotten’ water that poses a threat of possible drowning.

The Vryheid Herald enquired from AbaQulusi Local Municipality regarding the current state of the public swimming pool, since it was indicated in the budget that repairs would be carried out. At the IDP/Budget roadshow at the beginning of May, Cllr Magda Viktor said she was disappointed by the attendance of the public at these meetings. “It was quite a robust meeting and I really hope the leadership did take in and pay attention to what the people had to say, because there is a lot of money that is put aside, for instance to fix the pool.” At the meeting, a question was raised by a resident, asking why the swimming pool should be fixed rather than filling up the potholes or fixing the streetlights. With that remark in mind, Cllr Viktor emphasised the importance of public participants at these meetings to ensure that the municipality prioritises residents’ needs.

The municipality responded with the following:
We note your enquiry, but the municipality had to reprioritise, as it is currently operating on an unfunded budget. Therefore, all the projects that were going to be funded by the municipality had to be restructured, except for those that are Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) funded.
In essence, the fixing of President Street took precedence over the refurbishment of the swimming pool, as President Street is also internally funded. We are, however, not scrapping the project; we will look into it again after the budget adjustment early next year; that’s if Treasury lifts the unfunded budget status. Otherwise, we will have to move it to the 2023/24 financial year.
We are also engaging the idea of a private-public-partnership as an option, which will be published once finalised.

ALSO READ: AbaQulusi appoints new municipal manager

The news provided to you in this link comes to you from the editorial staff of the Vryheid Herald, a sold newspaper distributed in the Vryheid area.

Click to receive news links via WhatsApp. Or for the latest news, visit our webpage or follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Join us there!