Battle to get the drop on water thieves

MBOMBELA – Just a week after Sembcorp Silulumanzi had sent a stern warning to truck drivers against the selling and buying of water, it uncovered a number of illegal water connections on its bulk water suppliers to reservoirs.

There has been an escalation in illegal water connections, especially in some areas that are under the jurisdiction of Mbombela Local Municipality (MLM) which has a negative impact on supply. These illegal activities came under the spotlight early in January 2013 when Mpumalanga News visited an informal settlement called Mhlumeni near KaBokweni.

It was discovered that many houses were using illegal water and electricity connections.
This trend spread to other areas such as Mamindza, Lihawu, Goboza and Matsulu.
This publication also noted during an investigation with Sembcorp Silulumanzi last Friday, that most of the households with illegal connections had connected their pipes on the main ones of this service provider, thus contributing to the shortage of supply to various communities.

In an interview, the head of communications at Sembcorp Silulumanzi, Mr Richmond Jele said they were not going to win this battle overnight, but they were going to work hard to ensure that they fulfilled their mandate and that nothing tampered water supply.

“The illegal connections are giving us a problem, because sometimes we are not able to fill our reservoirs 100 per cent, because the water does not reach them. That is why there are areas that are struggling to get enough water, therefore, we are using our water trucks to provide them with water,” said Jele.

He alluded that they had tried to engage the communities several times, educating them about the disadvantages of the illegal water connections, but it seemed their efforts were not yielding fruitful results.

“It’s going to be very difficult to do away with the illegal connections, but we want to achieve something at the end of the day. In some areas we have task teams that are disconnecting the illegal connections, but in the evening or the following day when you come back, you find that the residents have installed other pipes.

As we are going to work with the municipality, I’m sure that we are going to achieve something,” he added.