Nirvana residents are fed up with water supply issues
The municipality has released several notices over the past week that alerted residents of water shortages due to a number of reasons. Nirvana residents, however, claim the water issues they face have been long ongoing.
POLOKWANE – In one of the statements released, municipal spokesperson Thipa Selala said the municipality would provide temporary relief in the form of water tankers to areas which experience shortages as the Lepelle Northern Water’s (LNW) Ebenezer scheme continued to experience constant electrical challenges.
This resulted in the scheme not pumping water to Polokwane for several hours due to ‘uneven electricity reliability’ as a result of weather conditions.
Another reason cited for the lack of supply by the municipality was load-shedding. A resident told the Polokwane Observer they have not had consistent water supply for years and the community rejoices when they get water for a few hours, even if it is at a low pressure.
“We struggle on a daily basis and we don’t get truthful answers from the municipality when we try to engage with them,” he said.
Selala said load-shedding had significantly interrupted the water treatment process and pumping of water to municipal supply reservoirs.
“This saw the city and areas such as Nirvana, which are supplied by LNW receive less water.
Another challenge is that the Olifantspoort plant has received high turbidity water from the Mohlaletsi River over the past two to three weeks. Water tankers supply water to the areas as and when it is required. There is no specific schedule for them, but they are sent out when the need arises.”
He added that the newly constructed reservoir in Nirvana, worth R5m, is operational and the area is supplied with water from the Olifantspoort line.
