KaBokweni community in dire need for water and roads

A local community called Thembelihle has not been formalised, leaving residents with inadequate access to basic service delivery, including water and proper roads. A councillor of Ward 32 of the City of Mbombela, Ezekiel Nkosi, said the community was established by land evaders about 20 years ago.

“There is a process of formalisation that this settlement needs to undergo within the municipality in order to benefit from service delivery programmes. We need to find out how many people are living there and what type of services they require. However, this process involves the Department of Co-operative Government and Traditional Affairs and traditional council of the area. At the moment, the council cannot intervene and help the residents because they do not know them and they are not in any database,” said Nkosi.

The area, which is adjacent to Themba Hospital, consists of shacks and small brick houses. The community relies on wells and ponds that fill up during the rainy season with water. Many residents resorted to illegally connecting to nearby power grids in 2010. The municipality removed the illegal connections not long after, but residents persisted to connect illegally. These actions came with serious consequences, such as the death of a toddler that was electrocuted. After this incident, the area gained legal access to electricity in June 2016.

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Nkosi said this power provision to the area took some serious physical man power, as the roads are not suitable for vehicles. “For the electricity poles to be installed, they had to be carried by hand to sites, instead of on trucks. It is admitted that it is difficult for the municipality to provide water tankers to service the people who live in Thembelihle because the roads are in bad shape,” he said.

A vocal resident, Domingo Matavele, said they want access to clean water and properly maintained roads, which are their fundamental human rights. He said the roads only get serviced when there is a funeral and the temporary fix is insufficient and highlights the municipality’s lack of commitment to provide service delivery in the area.

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“We thought a lot of change would be brought in our area when we got legal electricity in 2016. We had hoped to live like other South Africans, who receive basic services from the government. We feel abandoned and we have to fight for safe, drinkable water. We struggle to buy building equipment because the delivery services will not drive on these dilapidated roads, which we have tried to fix by shovelling to level them and using sand bags to stop soil erosion, but it is not enough,” said Matavele.