ActionSA national chair Michael Beaumont called out Brink for what he described as a new low.
Resident queue for water in Linmeyer, Johannesburg on 7 July 2021. Picture: Neil McCartney
While political parties are out campaigning and shaming each other, farmers are still struggling to get water supply and are worried about the upcoming El Nino season.
On Saturday, DA Tshwane mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink launched a billboard in Hammanskraal urging residents to vote for the party to get running water instead of from tankers.
Brink said that in the first financial year after ActionSA helped remove the DA-led government and handed Tshwane back to the ANC, the city spent R777 million on water tankers.
Then, ActionSA national chair Michael Beaumont called out Brink for what he described as a new low – unveiling a billboard about water tankers in a community where residents died from cholera in 2023 because of the tender awarded by the DA government to Edwin Sodi.
“In 2023, 31 residents of Hammanskraal died of cholera arising from the long-standing water crisis that affected the area for nearly 18 years.
“This was the result of long-term failures of ANC and DA governments to upgrade the Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant,” he said.
Hammanskraal farmer Theunis Vogel said operations at the Rooiwal sewage works have effectively ground to a halt, with 100% of the sewage still being discharged into the Apies River and flowing through wetlands toward farm land.
“Farming along the Apies River is no longer viable due to Tshwane’s 11 years of empty promises,” he added.
“Why has Gauteng not yet imposed penalties on Tshwane?
“Urgent action has been demanded from the department of water against officials who are failing to comply with court orders regarding maintenance, specifically the failure to clean farmers’ dams, including the Brits dam.”
