Some White River residents continue to receive dirty water from their taps, while others go without water for days on end due to yet another pipe leak.
The ward councillor, Rowan Torr, said residents constantly have dirty brown water flowing from their taps due to pipes that keep on bursting, leading to sediment settling in them. According to him, the burst pipes are the main reason why some of the residents of the area had to go for days without water.

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A pipe burst in Karee Street on November 24 at 01:00. Some City of Mbombela (CoM) officials arrived in the morning without a TLB. The residents were informed that the municipality had not paid the service provider and was not allowed to use it.
Torr said it was a shock to him and the residents that the CoM was not in a position to repair an essential service. The leak was eventually repaired, but some residents were without water for a day. After the repairs, the water was brownish, smelt bad and was undrinkable. Residents were forced to buy purified water at a retail shop as they feared for their health. “I am just worried about how those who cannot afford to buy clean water are surviving. People are paying for their municipal services, but service delivery is very poor,” he concluded.

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One of the residents, Emma de Beer (67), said she had been paying for drinking water for some time now as she takes chronic medication and the tap water is unsafe for her. “I pay my municipal services every month, but in return I get dirty water coming out of my taps. It is not fair to the residents at all. The painful part is that the CoM is aware of the water problems in our area, but they are doing nothing about it,”
she lamented.

Enos Mdakane (55) said he is planning to relocate, because he has had enough with the poor services in the area. “I pay for my services, but I still need to pay an extra R1 000 every month for drinking water as the water from the taps is always dirty and smells bad. The question is why we are paying when services are not delivered?”
The CoM’s spokesperson, Joseph Ngala, was unavailable for comment before this being published.