‘Give public R10 000 for water tanks’ – DA-motion

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Polo­kwane Municipality has filed a motion for debate and resolution during the next council meeting that may bring relief to consumers that were adversely affected by continued water shortages for some years now.
In a letter addressed to Polokwane Municipal Manager, Dikgape Makobe and Speaker of Council, Mariri Ralefatane, DA councillor, Frank Haas gave notice of intention to move that a once-off rebate of R10 000 be given to owners of properties in Bendor, Ster Park, Fauna Park. Flora Park and Serala View as a subsidy to purchase storage tanks. Haas stated that the rebate should only be applicable to consumers who did not make use of any other incentive scheme before and that their accounts should be paid up or that there must be a formal dispute on record on the date of the resolution. The date of the next council meeting is not available as yet.
In motivation of the motion, Haas said that the municipality fails on a regular basis to supply paid-up consumers with water, the latest being from 16 to 30 August, when residents did not have water for approximately 12 days. “The problem has been ongoing for a number of years with no solution in sight and the affected areas are arguably some of the most conscientious and high paying of the municipality.
“We, on a continuous basis are prepared to write off large amounts of debt from non-paying residents and we should now do something for our conscientious rate payers,” Haas concluded.
In a separate notice of motion, Haas requested that the municipality initiates a study to determine whether the valves in the water supply system could be manipulated in such a way that a reservoir is retained to provide water to the low catchment areas and that if it is not possible, that a dedicated reservoir be built to serve those areas.
On Monday, the municipality announced that the Olifantspoort plant will be shut off from Tuesday for two days to allow for the connection of a bypass on the new Specon pipe line and that shortages may occur as reservoir levels drop.
On Tuesday, the level of the Potgieter Avenue reservoir was at 22%, while the 50 and 30 mega litre reservoirs were at 10% and 5% respectively. The old 30 mega litre reservoir was very low at 1% while the level of the Seshego reservoir was at 10%. The flow from the Olifantspoort and Ebenezer plants were at 244 litres and 237 litres per second, respectively, before Olifantspoort was shut off. At time of going to print on Wednesday, it appeared that the shutdown that was in progress, has not as yet affected the availability of water.

Story: BARRY VILJOEN
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