Sewerage stench becomes unbearable

BURGERSFORT – According to DA councillor, Mr Roelof Lourens there is a huge sewage crisis in town. “The government moved the water authority from the Greater Tubatse Municipality (GTM) to Sekhukhune District which is situated in Groblersdal. The government gave it over R100 million a year to develop and maintain water and sewerage affairs in the municipality’s area,” said Lourens.

According to him, this was a serious problem because Sekhukhune District did not utilise the money to maintain these services.

Several areas in town can are flooded with waste which according to Lourens, flows into the Spekboom River. “People will soon start dying from cholera if the sewage as was the case a couple of years ago when many of people succumbed to the disease because of effluent flowing into the Steelpoort/Tubatse River. An article regarding this was published in the City Press newspaper,” said Lourens.

The area where the stench is becoming unbearable is around the old railway houses – 32 Nong Street, 18 and 22 Phofu Street (behind them) and at Spekboom River Estate. “Among others Sekhukhune District never deployed people to read water meters to determine the amount owed by residents. As a result of this many people stopped paying their bills claiming they could not use that much water and that they wou’t pay for something they didn’t use,” said Lourens.

Sekhukhune is getting paid to do the job but now officials of GTM must collect the payments and transfer it to Sekhukhune, according to the coucillor. “The municipal manager must take responsibility for the crisis and ensure that the water authority moves back to GTM. Therefore the municipality will be able to use the funds to develop and maintain its own areas sewerage and water,” said Lourens.

He believes that it’s the responsibility of the acting municipal manager of GTM to put pressure via the Limpopo province or parliament on the responsible official at Sekhukhune District to solve the problem. Lourens claims the ideal would be to move the water authority back to the municipality.