Housing audit needed to address access, accountability
21 October 2016
Release: Immediate
If the Gamagara Local Municipality does not address the many water leaks in and around Kathu, Sisheng and Mapoteng as a matter of urgency, the possibility exists that these towns can run dry very soon. While the region is in the grips of a severe drought, the municipality’s neglect and devil-may-care attitude means that millions of litres of purified water is going to waste.
In Dingleton, for example, water leaks have caused consumption to skyrocket from 85 cubic litres an hour to 105 cubic litres an hour. This is despite the fact that the resettlement in the area means fewer people are living in Dingleton than before. The standby pump in the Dingleton water tower is too small to do the necessary work and the supply pipe to the raw water pump is damaged. To date, the municipality has not attended to these problems.
The municipality also shrugs off the fact that only one of three pumps for garden water from the 400ml pump station works, that the standby pump motor at the Kathu treatment plant is defective and that supply pipes from the reservoir to the pumps at the Kathu Central water supply tower needs to be repaired. These are only some of the serious issues that needs to be attended to.
Earlier this week, a resident stepped in to fix a leak in Kathu that has been left for months and has caused paving in the street to collapse. The municipality’s approach to this particular leak was to shift the blame to Telkom and to say that they cannot fix the leak for fear of damaging Telkom lines. Yet the resident managed to do so without any damage to Telkom.
The Democratic Alliance urges the municipality to prioritise the maintenance of infrastructure and to do what is necessary to prevent the waste of clean water. It is of little to no value to extend pipelines with great fanfare if the existing infrastructure is not maintained properly.
Media enqueries:
Melinda Hattingh
DA Constituency Head for the Kalahari
082 494 6648
Tharina Whittaker
Researcher
071 251 5558
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