23 August 2024
Women wash clothes and even food in water from a farm dam. Photos: Tladi Moloi
Families in the eastern Free State are sharing water with pigs while they wait for the Maluti-a-Phofung municipality to fix the water supply which hasn’t worked for years.
Some say the problem dates back to 2010. The affected areas are Pereng, Ditading, Bagdat, Kgabisi and part of Tebang. According to the ward councillor, about 2,000 households are affected. Residents say some days when they wake up there are a few drops of water at the taps in their yards; other days there is no water at all.
The municipality says the water problem is the result of vandalism to the Pereng pump station.
During GroundUp’s visit to the area, some people were washing clothes at the dam on a nearby pig farm. Others were washing meat and vegetables.
They said they had lost hope that the municipality will ever fix this.
For drinking, they boil the water from the dam or walk two kilometres to a petrol station. Residents can be seen pushing wheelbarrows loaded with containers along the road on a daily basis.
Some residents fetch water in wheelbarrows from a petrol station two kilometres away.
Ward councillor Hlabathe Dlamini (ANC) confirmed that they had had a water problem for years. He said he had spoken to Maluti-a-Phofung Water (MAP Water) on several occasions but without success.
“I was a ward committee member in 2011 and since then the community has been experiencing the same problem. At that time I remember we were told that the problem was that the demand was high in that area and the reservoir couldn’t supply water to everyone. After that the reservoir was attended to and we thought everything was going to be fine, but nothing,” he said.
Dlamini said they were now being told the problem was with the pump station.
Kelopiloe Mongake, MAP Water spokesperson, said the municipality was fixing the vandalised pump station at Pereng.
“Yes, we are in the process of fixing that pump station and we would like to plead with the community to take care of the infrastructure. We have been supplying people with water tankers so long,” she said.
But Dlamini said the water trucks did not bring enough water and sometimes a week went by without anyone seeing a truck.
Rea Mokoena, from Bagdat, said families sometimes bought water from people who drive around selling water at R5 to R10 a litre. But the water was dirty. “We don’t even know where they get it. If you look at our water buckets after using trucks’ water you will find mud at the bottom,” she said.
“We want water from our taps.”
“Once we go on the street, block roads with rocks and burn tyres they will do something, because that is the only language our government understands,” she said.
Mongake denied that the area had been without water for more than ten years. “No. It is not true. They are exaggerating.” She acknowledged that in the past there had been problems with the Makwane plant which pumps water from the Metsi Matsho Dam to Pereng and other pump stations. That was because of power failures, she said.