Residents are irate with lack of service delivery
"How are we expected to survive without water, a basic need we can not do without?
MGANDUZWENI – After almost 20 years of the birth of democracy, residents are still complaining about basic service delivery such as access to clean water.
Community members of this village, which is situated between Hazyview and White River, have expressed their frustration regarding water issues.
According to Ms Petunia Nonyane, there are many issues which they are not happy about in the community, but lack of water was their main concern.
“How are we expected to survive without water, a basic need we can not do without? You see, when you are poor and on top of that have no mere water, it worsens the situation,” she said.
Another resident, Ms Sandra Madonsela, said that what makes matters worse is that they have to travel for long distances pushing water in wheel barrows and the streets are bad.
“Here, we are the forgotten. Even now that we are approaching elections, the ruling party does not even try to bribe us by attending to our basic needs. We are not asking for much, just basic things,” said the frustrated Madonsela.
She added that it was difficult for her to understand why they have been struggling with the same problem for years and even after their complaints were raised with the help of the media.
“They don’t care whether they get our votes or not. They have enough people voting for them and do not need ours,” concluded Madonsela.
There are taps which have been erected, but residents say they go for months without a drop of water out of them.
“Some of the taps have been broken and stolen because they are just useless,” said Mr Anthony Maleka, another frustrated resident.
The village is a few kilometres away from two metropolitan towns and residents have said that it should not be difficult to connect proper water pipes for them.
“Even if the government would send water tanks to deliver water for us, we would not mind. We are not demanding to have running water inside our houses. We just need to have water to be able to survive,” said Maleka..
