According to DA councillor in the MDM, Marie Helm, the municipality has spent millions of Rand on borehole development since 2017.

“Money was spent on refurbishment and all sorts of borehole-related items with no future planning for sustainable water provisions for all the communities.”

She said that from as far back as 2017, borehole development and refurbishment was prominent in the MDM’s Adjustment Budget.

“R122 million was budgeted for and during the February 2017 Adjustment Budget it was topped up with a further R32 million.

“The DA was very concerned that the municipality spent so much money on this because the council received no corroborating reports on the number, GPS positioning and other vital information for these boreholes.

“We are further concerned that there was no justification for these boreholes or how our communities benefit from these allocations,” Helm said.

In the Adjustment Budget of 2018/19, R23 million was again allocated for borehole repairs.

“We believe that borehole development is the one place where corruption seems to flourish.

It seems that this item on the annual MDM budget is an ideal hunting ground for corrupt cadres and their political connected friends.”

Helm further said that in the rollover report tabled in 2019), R12,2 million were spent for drought relief on borehole development or refurbishment including the development of new boreholes at Mphagani village at the cost of R749 986 and the refurbishment of a borehole at Ga-Daniel for R538 200.00.

“It seems that no specific amount was pre-approved for the development of new boreholes and no borehole number was provided as it must be registered on the database kept by the Department of Water and Sanitation.”

Also read: Still no running water for Muhlava after 30 years

In the Adjustment Budget of 2019/20, which was tabled, a further R53.5 million was utilised for emergency water provision in the rural areas in terms of refurbishment of boreholes.

During the virtual special c.ouncil meeting which was held on Monday15 June 2020, a special Adjustment Budget was tabled to spend a further R20 764 000 on 20 borehole projects under Capital Expenditure.

“The DA believes that the drilling of boreholes, refurbishment and ground water development is the preferred way in which millions of Rand are disappearing into certain well-connected pockets and is very concerned that with the population growth and with no planning for the development of more dams, the people in MDM will run out of water soon, especially during persistent droughts.”

Odas Ngobeni, spokesperson for MDM told the Herald that the Mopani district do not have many water sources as a district.

“People will recall that we have had to deal with the challenges of a drought in the past years which necessitated the development of boreholes, because underground water became the only alternative.

He said the Middle-Letaba Dam has been empty until not very long ago.

“Tzaneen Dam and Nsami Dam were also almost empty.

What then becomes the alternative?”

He further said MDM had to deal with challenges of infrastructure for bulk distribution and that it was not something that could be resolved overnight.

“Our communities want water now, and we have an obligation to ensure that water is available to all of our communities.

Water tankering is also not less expensive,” Ngobeni said.

He said that part of the reasons why the Giyani Bulk Water Project, which will see abstracting of water from the Nandoni Dam,