Dry taps continue to ‘harass’ residents of Vryheid
“We are at a place where the municipality can no longer render the necessary services.”
The continuous water outages in town have community members up in arms. The most recent outage lasted a couple of days at the end of last month and according to messages that were received by a reliable source, the reason was that the municipality’s Department of Technical Services did not want to sign off on an order for chemicals/chlorine for the water plant. It is alleged that the department told the employees at the plant to ‘make a plan’ to purify the water. Even though there is a constant issue with the maintenance of the water pump, added factors such as not producing purified water are of grave concern. Unpurified water can contain ecoli, which is highly dangerous. All of these additional problems occur on top of load-shedding, which also has an effect on the water supply to town. Every day, residents wonder if there will be any water.
Several community WhatsApp groups have been abuzz, with business owners complaining about the impact these water outages have on their businesses.
“I think it’s time we take our town back.”
“We are at a place where the municipality can no longer render the necessary services.”
Chairperson of AfriForum Vryheid, André van der Walt, said: “AfriForum sal watertoetse neem en nie huiwer om kriminele kagtes teen verantwoordelike bestuur van die plaaslike munisipaliteit asook distrik munisipaliteit in te stel indien die water gehalte nie toetse slaag vir menselike gebruik nie.
“Rou riool vloei in die stroom wat na Klipfonteindam toe loop as gevolg van riool-pompstasies wat onklaar is. Water word vanaf Klipfontein onttrek vir menslike gebruik met riool in.
“Dis juis die werk van die Plaaskike Regering wat hierdie basiese dienste moet lewer volgens standaard. Abaqulusi Plaaslike Munisipaliteit (APM) het geen verskoning om nie hieraan te voldoen nie. Inwoners betaal vir gesuiwerde water en eiendomsbelastingbydrae tot die APM is, volgens die webblad ‘Municipal Money’, R 100.7 miljoen.”
The Vryheid Herald submitted an enquiry to AbaQulusi Local Municipality regarding the allegations, but at the time of going to print, no response had been received.
ALSO READ: Community up in arms over water crisis
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.
