POLOKWANE – THE Polokwane Municipality has set aside R122 million towards the provision of water in rural areas from its capital expenditure of R518 million during this financial year.
However, there is still a recurrence of theft of transformers, cables, pumps, illegal connections and vandalism.
This emerged last week Thursday when mayor Thembi Nkadimeng embarked on a water project inspection in the Moletjie East area in a bid to ensure that the projects are completed and delivered on time so that communities can receive water.
The municipality has announced that it will engage role players like Eskom on how to safeguard the transformers.
The municipality says it has an agreement with the communities that pump stations would be erected in the middle of the residential areas so that residents can secure them.
Nkadimeng said, “thieves and vandals come from our communities and this becomes a community problem, and therefore the community must also deal with this matter so that they exercise their responsibility – that when government provide developmental infrastructure they must take care of it”.
She also indicated that the municipality will engage with the communities to come up with a plan to root out illegal connections.
Her visit focused on projects that are not doing well in terms of meeting their targeted completion time.
Among the projects that were visited by Nkadimeng were those at Makgodu, Ralema, Ramongoane, Semenya, Matamanyane and Makibelo villages. She met with project managers, consultants, contractors and community liaison officers to solicit feedback on progress made and the challenges that are being experienced at the ongoing projects.
Nkadimeng was accompanied by the speaker of council Caiphus Mathiba, chief whip Mamedupi Teffo, chairperson of the water and sanitation portfolio, Eddy Maleka and chairperson for the special programmes portfolio Johanna Kaka. Nkadimeng reminded service providers on government’s mandate on the provision of water as part of its service delivery agenda.
“The contractors and consultants have an obligation to ensure that projects servicing our communities are delivered on time and are of high quality,” she said.
At a project that is behind schedule at Makgodu, Nkadimeng did not mince words when she told the contractor that if they do not comply with the timelines agreed on, the municipality will terminate the contract.
“By not completing projects on time it is a disservice that denies communities essential services and we cannot allow this to happen under our watch when we know that water is life and the people we lead must drink water.”
