AfriForum opposes Alta’s plan to restore water

Afriforum’s André van der Walt has objected to the plan and is appealing to the council to reconsider its decision for the benefit of all residents.

He has attended every JOC meeting since the water crisis began, voicing the needs of Vryheid’s residents even when municipal officials failed to attend.

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Cllr de Kock’s initial plan divided the water distribution area into eight zones, and placed the hospital and the prison within the last zone to which water was to be restored.

“At that stage, we, as AfriForum, expressed our dissatisfaction with the plan and decided to distance ourselves from the plan. We see that a new plan was distributed on Friday, in which the hospital and prison will be among the first to have water supply restored. We do agree with that, but seriously oppose the way the reconnections are being done,” began Mr van der Walt.

“We would like to see the reconnections being done all at once, after the water meters are received and installed. With the help of contractor plumbers, this job could have been done within two or three weeks, after which everybody would have had water supply restored, and everyone would be liable to pay for water.

“Our council decided to reconnect only to residents with water meters, those without water meters will have their supply blocked until new meters have been received. Municipal plumbers will have to block those without meters, and go back to remove the blockages to install new meters. This means double the labour costs!”
According to Mr van der Walt, there are four plumbers at the municipality (including foremen), and one of the plumbers has been assigned to deal only with sewage.

“This leaves us with only three plumbers to do normal maintenance and repairs. Now, they will also have to do the installation of plugs where water meters have been stolen, and install new water meters when they arrive. This makes it highly improbable that they will be able to work according to the schedule and complete all the work by the end of May. In fact, this schedule is not worth the paper it was written on.”

“This plan is going to create the following problems,” continued Mr van der Walt.

“Mr A will have water at his house. His neighbour, Mr B, will have no water because his meter has been stolen. As if it were his fault, he will have to fetch water from the collection points supplied by Zululand District municipality (not AbaQulusi). This will not only create unhappiness but will throw the door wide open for chaos with regards to meter reading and water billing, corruption and unlawful connections by residents who don’t have water meters.”

One of the most critical points in Mr van der Walt’s argument is the fact that the water collections points in town are all situated on the rising main pipes to the reservoir. If water is pumped from Klipfontein to the reservoir, that water will only be available at the water collection points while the pumps are running. When the pumps are shut down to prevent back flow, no water will be able to flow to the collection points and residents who still have to collect water may find that water collection points have run dry.