SEVERAL parts of the Molemole area face a serious water crisis despite the Capricorn District Municipality’s (CDM) allocation of more than R11 million to supply water to these villages in the current financial year.
This water crisis is affecting Sekakene, Fatima, Mogodi, New Stands and Ga Madikana and has been ongoing for almost six months.
DA ward councillor in the Molemole Municipality, Calvin Matjee, said residents were forced to use the little money they had to buy water at inflated prices, just to survive.
“This is a burden to those poor families that have no source of income at all or are relying on social grants. The municipality further failed to repair the water pumps in these villages, which led to the water crisis in the first place,” he said.
Matjee said it was also the CDM’s responsibility to ensure that residents had water. “The DA urges them to provide water tankers as a form of interim relief,” he said.
Molemole Municipality spokesperson, Morongwa Pholoba said the municipality did face some water challenges, but there was no crisis.
She said the area relied on boreholes for water for years.
Pholoba said the boreholes often ran dry and when that happened the municipality delivered at least 50 000 litres of water to communities weekly.
“The villages all get water delivered to them on a weekly basis. The municipality has not had a breakdown of its fleet, so water delivery has been constant. These allegations are not true,” Pholoba said.
CDM municipal manager, Ngoako Molokone, said the municipality intended to install a pipeline from Nandoni dam in the Vhembe district to the Molemole municipality. He said the project could cost R1 billion to complete.
“Relying on boreholes can’t work. We have already conducted studies on how to get water from that dam. We want to make sure that the people of Molemole and Aganang get clean water. The only problem we have to deal with is the theft of water pumps and electric transformers,” Molokone said.
