Plan to restore water deemed racist

THE ‘Alta’mate plan to restore water supply in Vryheid has been trashed by ANC politicians, together with residents of Bhekuzulu and Lakeside, who are calling the plan “racist.”

Bhekuzulu and Lakeside residents held protests saying that the decision to restore water one zone at a time was just a way to ensure that white residents got water first. They demanded that the zoning be redone and that water be restored to Bhekuzulu and Lakeside first.

However, since the water has to flow through the Vryheid CBD to reach Bhekuzulu and Lakeside, this meant that water had to be restored to the entire town at once, and the idea of zoning had to be discarded altogether.

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AbaQulusi’s Water Department complied by working until the early hours of the morning every day until all the exposed pipes they had identified, where water meters has been stolen, had been plugged.

However, when the water supply was restored, water was seen flowing down the streets from leaks where a hired contractor had not placed the plugs properly, where more meters had been stolen since the process of plugging had taken place, and where the Water Department had accidentally overlooked missing meters.

The Vryheid community responded to the leaks in outrage.

Some residents took to social media calling Cllr de Kock’s plan ‘stupid’ and expressing their anger at the loss of water.

Klipspringer Street resident, Sampie van Greuning, said he observed water running down Church Street for hours.

“I contacted the ward councillor, Alta de Kock, and she said the only way to see where the rest of the leaks are is to see where the water was coming up, but we can’t just let water flow into the street like that. I bought my car in February and I don’t even want to waste water washing my car. We have reduced our household water consumption to no more than 1000 litres a week and I share the water in my tank with my neighbour so she doesn’t have to walk to town to fetch water. We can’t pray to God to give us water and then waste it like that,” said Mr van Greuning.

“When they opened the water, there were leakages for Africa,” agreed Cllr de Kock, who received 147 complaints of water leakages over the weekend. “On Wednesday night, I asked the Water Department to close the water supply as they had run out of the plugs for the missing meters. On Thursday morning, they bought more plugs from a local contractor and worked through the night to have them fitted. They also worked through Friday. On Saturday, they turned the water on, took note of where the leakages were and worked to fix them as quickly as they could. The water was turned off on Saturday while the leakages were being fixed and opened again on Sunday. It was turned off on Monday because the reservoir was running low and it needed to fill up again,” said Cllr de Kock.

“Roland Marx and his team are really working hard and I take my hat off to him.”

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Mr Marx, an official at the Water Department, cautioned that even when the water supply is turned on, only half of the town will be able to receive water as long as Bloemveld Dam was depended on to supply.

“At full capacity, Bloemveld can only give us 7 megalitres per day and we need to pump 14 to 15 megalitres a day to supply the entire town. One of the pumps at Klipfontein is being repaired, and once that is done, the entire town can receive water. After Klipfontein is running, it will be two or three days as the system fills up, before everyone will have water supply restored.”

Mr Marx said the biggest problem his team has encountered is more meters being stolen in streets where they had already finished plugging.

“In the next week, however, we should have all the leaks under control. Then, I feel like I could sleep for an entire day,” he said, having worked until the early hours of the morning every day for two weeks.

Cllr de Kock urges residents to call Link Up on 034 980 8872 to report leaks, or to send her an SMS on 082 892 7878 with the location of the leak.

“I immediately get hold of Roland and he sends a team to conduct the necessary repair,” she said.