Polokwane Municipality will address water shortages

While Polokwane Executive Mayor, Thembi Nkadimeng addressed residents of Ward 21 in about the city’s immediate water crisis last Thursday evening, a group of protesters disrupted a parallel meeting convened in Serala View and thereafter hijacked a water tanker in Flora Park.
The urgent meeting had been called by the ANC Ike Maphoto branch and Nkadimeng was accompanied by the municipality’s Water and Sanitation Manager, Sam Makoti and Lepelle Northern Water’s General Manager: Operations, Ahuiwi Netsidaulu. The deputation provided details of the municipality’s short-term interventions that will address water shortages.
Nkadimeng said that she was confident that water supply challenges in higher lying areas would be something of the past once all infrastructure was constructed and water distribution and storage requirements addressed together with the optimisation of supply zones in terms of a planned upgrade and maintenance plan for the city.
“Inappropriate pressure zoning and demands of supply zones that are exceeding the reservoir capacities available, are the major reasons for water shortages in higher lying areas and the installation of additional pressure adjusting valves to allow for better distribution of water throughout the supply zones may minimise the effect of low pressure in some areas. An additional intervention will be to pump water from the groundwater resources directly into the internal reticulation systems,” Nkadimeng said.
Nkadimeng confirmed that, by the end of October, the municipality will be calling for tenders to reconfigure the existing water reticulation infrastructure and the groundwater resources of the city at an estimated cost of between R350 and R400 million. “The order of magnitude of the additional water that these groundwater resources will bring to the city during peak demand periods is around 30 mega litres per day. This is close to 25% of the current use in Polokwane city,” Nkadimeng said and added that, as part of the project, additional storage reservoirs will be constructed to facilitate interlinked distribution between lower and higher lying areas.
Nkadimeng stressed that Polokwane was still dependent on Lepelle Northern Water to secure funds to upgrade the Olifantspoort and Ebenezer water systems as a medium and long-term solution to the city’s water supply challenges.
Meeting in Ward 20 abandoned due to disruption
The meeting convened in Serala View to inform residents of Ward 20, was disrupted by a group of protesters and had to be postponed to a date to be announced. Polokwane Municipal Manager, Dikgape Makobe and a supporting team of officials were dedicated to address residents there. Communications and Marketing Manager of the municipality, Matshidiso Mothapo said that the protesters were the same group that hijacked a water tanker in Flora Park later in the evening.
“The group of young men reeked of alcohol and came with the intention of disrupting the proceedings and the meeting did not proceed. It was an unfortunate situation because the rest of the community wanted to get the information and the plans to deal with current shortages, but were denied that opportunity and the municipality condemns such senseless acts that denies other people the right to water,” Mothapo said.
According to Mothapo, the water tanker had to be retrieved from Flora Park under Police escort after the protesters forced the operator to dispose of the load into Wisteria Street. It was learnt that the protesters claimed that the water was polluted and that they refused to use it. Mothapo said that this claim was devoid of all truth.

Story & photos: BARRY VILJOEN
>>barryv.observer@gmail.com