For the past nine years, residents in Extension 2 have been living next to what can only be described as a sewage pool, which has been leaking into the Dorps River flowing through town.

The former Mega Housing Group, a division of the Mpumalanga government, promised to build a new sewerage pump station. But Mega Housing Group has since gone bankrupt – and for five years, the huge excavation that took place has been left unattended.

This past week, residents in this extension had a glimmer of hope as Thaba Chweu Local Municipality (TCLM) finally appointed a service provider to fix the spills and pump station. However, this was short-lived as a group of people demanding jobs interrupted the consulting engineer at the sewerage pump station, preventing him
from completing his inspection.

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“The group said they wanted to be awarded the opportunity to do the work and demanded that the service provider on-site stop the work. They said the contract should be awarded to locals and out of fear, the service provider stopped working,” Allan Marajee*, a resident in this extension explained.

The company appointed for the refurbishment of the sewerage pump is G Seal Consulting. “We were informed that the engineers are expected to come up with a short-, medium- and long-term solution to address the notorious sewer blockages in the area and that work is expected to resume shortly,” Marajee said.

Themba Sibiya, TCLM’s communication manager, confirmed that there were people on-site and if the process had not been interrupted, the work would have been completed a week ago.

He said there is some confusion regarding the process of the completion of the project. “There is no contractor appointed to do the work, only a consulting engineer who is busy making an assessment of the envisaged work.

The engineer is also referred to as a service provider to the municipality. They will ascertain how much work needs to be done and from there on they will be able to determine how much it will cost.

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“The project will be advertised and every business will be awarded the opportunity to bid in order to appointed best suited for repairs. The concerned group was addressed in a meeting with the institution last week.” Sibiya said the consultant will likely finish his inspection by the end of this week.

According to residents, the spills and stench make their lives unbearable since they are forced to see human faeces flowing into the road and ultimately leaking into the Dorps River.

Steelburger/Lydenburg News can confirm the statements made by locals, as the stench and flies surrounding the sewage spill are intolerable. “I sincerely hope that this is the last time we are exposed to these horrific conditions,” another resident said.

*A pseudonym was used to protect the identity of the community member.