Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink has responded to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s weekend comments on Mamelodi water supply challenges.
While on a door-to-door campaign in Mamelodi at the weekend, Ramaphosa had said the water crisis was a DA governance failure. He promised locals that when his party regained Tshwane governance, it would fix the water crisis “because the DA-led coalition has failed the people of Mamelodi”.
The ANC president was accompanied on the campaign trail on February 4 by Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi and other party delegates.
Many residents complained to him about the water crisis, unemployment and the high estimated municipality bill, among others.
Brink said Ramaphosa came to Mamelodi for registration week, “and I was in Mamelodi before him to address the water crisis”.
“I think his comments are political, obviously, and we understand the president is under a lot of pressure under his government. South Africa has more load-shedding than ever before, extended the lockdown, destroyed jobs, killed businesses, and struck the economy, which made it difficult for consumers to pay their bills,” said Brink.
He said police don’t have enough equipment needed to do their job, “which is why we see a lot of land grabs in the township”.
“President Ramaphosa blames other people rather than take responsibility because the space we operate in in local government and to a very large degree, depends on the performance of the national government.”
Brink said he was in Mamelodi a week before, not to point fingers but to address the water outages caused by illegal connections to the reservoirs, “that we have to disconnect”.
Ramaphosa told locals that the crisis was an urgent matter, hence “we are handing this matter of the water crisis to the provincial and national governments to take over and deal with it”.
However, his message was received with mixed feelings as residents were happy the president had come to address the problem while others said they would not vote if they still didn’t have water.
Ikageng residents were the first to experience a water shortage in Mamelodi and said they were tired of pushing wheelbarrows daily to fetch water.
The residents said it all started in 2020 with low water pressure, but today their taps are permanently dry.
Community member Billy Monama said last September: “We want the problem of water shortage fixed permanently.
“We are tired of pushing wheelbarrows all day to fetch water from water trucks.
“We are ratepayers, so we don’t deserve to walk such long distances for water, while a nearby informal settlement has water, and they don’t pay for services,” Monama said.
“Ikageng ext. 3 was one of the places in Mamelodi where you find beautiful and expensive houses, but today our houses have lost value.”
Monama also said the metro had since promised to fix the issue while their local councillor escalated the matter to the provincial level.
Pensioner Anna Makitla said she is very happy with the visit of the president, and hopes it will solve their water crisis.
“Our taps have been dry for the past three years, and we rely on water tankers while we have taps in our yard,” said Makitla.
She pleaded with the president to remove all illegal connections at the reservoir, as well as the land invaders.
Other residents claimed the water crisis had spread to other areas, including schools.
In November, residents east of Mamelodi protested the ongoing water crisis outside the Ikageng community hall on registration weekend preventing people from registering for the 2024 elections.
They claimed the water problems in Ikageng ext. 3, Mahube Valley, and Mamelodi East phases 3 and 4 started four years ago with low pressure. Then there was no water at all, and this also affected a few schools in the area.
“No voter registration will take place at Ikageng community hall before Tshwane addresses the water crisis,” they threatened then.
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