Minutes after delivering a prepared speech promising to fix the water crisis in the Naledi municipality, North West premier Bushy Maape dug in his heels saying there was no crisis, to begin with.
Delivering his state of the province address on Friday, Maape said his government had established a steering committee to urgently attend to water and sanitation challenges in four municipalities, including Naledi.
The Huhudi community in Vryburg, under the Naledi municipality, has not had a steady water supply for the last decade. Two weeks ago Maape stunned the nation when he claimed that the area had running tap water in the area and flushing toilets.
In his speech on Friday Maape said: “We are on our feet, restless and listening attentively to the cries of our people who are delivering messages of impatience, requesting us to do the one simple thing required of us, to resolve challenges facing our people in order to make a better life for all.”
“We are retaining the provincial war room on water which is part of the accelerated rapid service delivery approach we announced in 2022… We have established a steering committee jointly with the minister of water and sanitation, Senzo Mchunu, to urgently attend to water and sanitation challenges in Ditsobotla, Naledi, Madibeng, and Ramotshere.”
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But during a press conference shortly after, he maintained that Huhudi does not have a water problem and even challenged journalists to go to his hometown.
“Do you want me to take you there? I can take you there. I grew up there, I visit the area regularly,” he said.
Meanwhile, residents said only those who can afford a jojo tank and R350 water to refill had access to water in their homes. This includes the premier’s family home along Mahura Street, whose tank could be seen in the yard.
A few houses away from the premier’s family home lives a 73-year-old pensioner Zondeka Siwa, who cares for her bed-ridden 103-year-old mother, four children, and six grandchildren. She said she had no choice but to collect water from a communal jojo tank.
“You can open the tap and check for yourself. There is no water. We collect eight 20-litre drums of water daily, to clean, bath cook, and drink. What does he (Maape) mean there is water? His own sister just down the street has to refill their jojo tank. We cannot afford that.”
“My body aches from the pushing and lifting, my back and hips are always in pain, but we have no one to cry to because we need the water,” she said.
Siwa has to wake up at 5am every morning , prepares her grandchildren for school before heading out to queue at a communal jojo tank on Sejake Street.
“The jojo tank would sometimes run out if one was not early enough and we would be forced to walk for about a kilometer to the Naledi wastewater treatment plant.
This explained the prominent sight of people pushing wheelbarrows and trollies of buckets to collect water in the township. The plant had scores of people queueing to fill up their buckets.
In some houses, flushing water was even a luxury.
“I am sure you can smell our toilet. We have to use water sparingly so we only flush after going a few times,” said Sana Mokgosi who lives in Mahura Street.
“We have not bathed in two days because we cannot make so many trips to the plant. The Jojo tank on the other street, well, if we are lucky enough or early enough then we get water from there. But today we were not lucky.”
“None of us has water in this area, those that have private jojo tanks you will even see how nice their houses are.”
She made a plea for the municipality to consider fixing the water problem or allocating a tank for each street.
Community activist Pule Nkgobang said the premier in his SOPA missed an opportunity to address the problem of sabotage to water infrastructure which he said was the leading cause of the problem.
“Contractors are known for damaging infrastructure. It’s a common practice so they can make more money. Some of these boreholes are tempered with or closed up for this reason. Why is he hiding this issue of sabotage? It is odd that he wants to act like everything is in order when it is not,” he said.
“I mean if he got the wrong information, now was the time for him to visit the area and see for himself, but he continues to lie and nothing is changed for us.”
Nkgobang said the community would be protest on Tuesday in hopes of getting a plan of action from the municipality.
sibiyan@sowetan.co.za
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