LYDENBURG – It seems that Thaba Chweu Municipality just can’t keep itself out of the spotlight. An SABC news crew recently rolled into town, this time to report on the serious water crisis facing locals.
The crew was taken to the historic graveyard where raw sewage has been overflowing from a manhole ending up in the Dorpsriver.
They interviewed the deputy chairman of the DA in Mpumalanga, Ms Sonja Boshoff, regarding the severe water pollution facing the town and surrounding areas.
Boshoff said it was of grave concern to the party that TCM was not instituting any maintenance or upgrade of the sewerage works. “It is a pity that they always rely on businesses and the private sector to take the responsibility and the fact that the sewage is running into the rivers is also of grave concern because it negatively affects the people on the banks of the river as well as the farming community.
Farmers in the Waterfall River Pass have large orchards and they export their fruit. They are not even aware of the sewage that runs into the river they use for irrigation. For the people living on the riverbank it could create a huge health hazard and that is something we cannot allow at this point and time.
We are requesting TCM to please ensure they attend to this matter and if they are not able to, to get someone else to intervene. The DA has asked many times for intervention but to no avail.”
Mr Leon de Jager, local chairman of AfriForum, told the SABC they held the municipality accountable but that nothing seemed to be done. “What is actually happening with our water crisis is that the private sector had to intervene about a month ago by taking over the water works of TCM.
They found it in a very dilapidated state and spent over R200 000 of their own money to make it operational again. For the first time in ages the town is getting clean water. Another concern is that council has allowed the sewerage works to fall into complete disrepair.
The private sector has also jumped in with the help of the local mines and smelters. They indicated it should be another two weeks before the sewage works will be fully operational. At the moment all the sewage is just running into the Dorps River. It will eventually end up in the Olifant’s River which runs into the Kruger Park.
There is a few thousand litres running into the river every day and its adversely affecting the health of rural communities downstream.The council’s whole technical maintenance department has completely collapsed as far as services are concerned.”
