Water problems in Bethal and eMzinoni continue
The municipal manager says GMM and Eskom are searching for the root cause of the problem.
While many residents of Bethal and eMzinoni are still without water, the municipal manager of Govan Mbeki Municipality, Elliot Maseko, said on January 26 during a council meeting that they do not know what may have caused the problem.
Maseko said he was on site with Rand Water to investigate since Rand Water is pumping water at full capacity.
He said Rand Water is not reducing water pressure and supply to Bethal and eMzinoni residents because the municipality has been paying Rand Water monthly.
The community helped the DA to supply water to residents on January 25.
The DA also organised a peaceful march on January 28 in Secunda to protest against poor service delivery, load-shedding and poor infrastructure.
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They planned on handing over a memorandum to the municipal manager during the march. The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) also voiced their opinion about the Govan Mbeki Municipality and the lack of water in Behtal.
Aranda Nel-Buitendag, VF Plus councillor, said the VF Plus finds it unacceptable that it is taking the municipality so long to find a solution for the ongoing water crisis, while residents are suffering from thirst.
“This water crisis in the Govan Mbeki municipal area that includes Bethal, Charl Cilliers, eMbalenhle, Evander, Kinross, Leandra, Secunda and Trichardt, has been ongoing since 2018,” said Nel-Buitendag.
“One of the contributing factors is that the municipality still owes Rand Water about R595 000 000. The VF Plus already shed some light on this problem in 2019, but the municipality chose to not react to its community’s calls for help.”
Nel-Buitendag said councillors during the 2022 festive season made sure residents had water by providing water tankers.
“This is not a solution in the long run.”
The VF Plus visited the reservoir in Bethal where they noticed no water was pumping from Trichardt.
“The reservoir’s water levels stay between 10% and 30%. We believe the current water crisis the municipality is facing, was not caused overnight.
“Poor planning from the municipality’s side plays a big part and the poor infrastructure of water pipes, dams, water purification sites and water pumps contributes to the problem. Water leakages are not repaired on time, thus clean water is wasted.
“There are no experts in this field of water management at the Govan Mbeki Municipality and in the meantime, residents have to rely on the unreliable water tankers to provide water according to a schedule that the VF Plus insisted on.”
Because access to clean water is a right of every citizen, Nel-Buitendag said they will continue to put pressure on the municipality to fix this problem, especially since the country was hit by a heat wave in the past few weeks.
