Graskop residents take on municipality

After the Graskop community was left without water for the greater part of July 15, access has now been restored. Various reasons were initially provided as to why residents were left waterless.

These range from the municipality deliberately switching off pumps to force residents into submission regarding the recent electricity tariff issues, to the municipality claiming that due to protests, they could not access the pumps to switch them on.

In a message sent out by unit manager MJ Motankisi, load-shedding, paired with negligence on the municipality’s side, was partly blamed.

Motankisi  said, “On July 8 I gave a clear instruction to the operational staff to keep municipal vehicles at the workshop and to refrain from wandering around town unnecessarily to avoid possible damage to the municipal vehicles given the protests and since some people may use the opportunity to advance other unlawful motives.

“The operational staff were further instructed to collect vehicles from the workshop and attend to any breakdown in services.

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“Yesterday we had load-shedding and it is clear that the responsible official neglected to switch on the pumps afterwards.

“This is an internal weakness which will be addressed to avoid recurrence in future.

“I can assure you that no instructions of switching off the water supply pumps were given out by either head office or myself as the unit manager.

“All other rumours and speculation are false and misleading.”

After the protest regarding electricity tariffs, the protest committee decided that the municipal offices should remain closed until demands are met.

According to the chairperson of the rate payers association, Lance Gibson, currently the main offices are closed, but the licence department is open.

He said, however, if that office is not closed by Monday more protests may erupt.

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“Water pumps were switched on yesterday and as of this morning all residents have water. There has been no word from the municipality regarding the suspension of the electricity levy charge though.

“We will have a meeting tomorrow with the unit manager to try and reach an agreement on continued emergency services.”

The committee had a meeting on July 15 where some of the following was discussed:

• They decided that they would replace windows broken at the town library during last week’s protests in order to protect books and computer equipment. The community will pay the costs.
• They will also meet with the Sabie community leaders on Friday in Graskop to discuss taking on TCLM on in a united front.