Vandalism of water infrastructure strongly condemned by District Mayor
In the most blatant incident, armed men forced their way into the Utrecht Water Treatment Plant and held staff and security personnel at gunpoint:
The Amajuba District Municipality has strongly condemned the vandalism of water infrastructure that supplies water to the Emadlangeni and Dannhauser areas.
“These acts undermine and disrupt the municipality’s efforts to ensure water security for communities in need of our services,” the District Municipality said in a statement.
“Over the past months, we have witnessed several criminal acts and incidents at most of our plants where irresponsible and uncaring criminals stole cables and destroyed one of the most important component areas of the infrastructure.”
Staff tortured and robbed at Utrecht Water Plant:
In the most blatant incident, armed men forced their way into the Utrecht Water Treatment Plant and held staff and security personnel at gunpoint, tortured them and helped themselves to copper cables that were meant for the upgrade and refurbishment of this plant.
Mayor, Cllr. uMntwana Ndabuko Zulu, labelled these incidents ‘as barbaric acts aimed at undermining the efforts of the Amajuba District Municipality as a Water Service Authority (WSA) and further denying citizens their constitutional right to access water.’
He denounced the armed robbers who attacked and tortured the personnel at the Utrecht Water Plant.
“These are heartless criminals who do not only steal but go as far as abusing unsuspecting and innocent employees, some of whom are women, who wake up every day and to ensure that the residents have water.
“There can never be any kind of justification for these criminal and ugly incidents. We cannot have people who find joy in destroying the water infrastructure and stealing cables.
“The recent abuse and torture of our employees and security guards rendering their service through our contracted service provider goes beyond cruelty.
“Vandalism takes the municipality back on its service delivery plans and targets. As soon as water infrastructure is damaged, the municipality must take necessary and urgent steps to restore water supply, and that is not in our budget.
“We cannot also exhaust our already strained budget into unrealistic security measures just because of people who do not care.”
“We cannot allow criminals to make our water plants their playgrounds”.
Mayor Zulu warned that the water challenges will not be resolved ‘if we allow uncaring crooks to make our water plants their playground, where they come to steal and destroy whenever their criminality needs to be catered for.’
“We call upon our communities to close all corners for criminals whose acts seek to cause water production and supply disturbances. We do not need to remind the respected residents that it is they that suffer mostly from this, and they would normally go on the roads to protest about water shortages while criminals causing problems are walk freely among us. “Let us unite against these acts and report all suspicious acts to the police or to our local leaders, added Mayor Zulu.
“This can only be achieved if residents stand by the municipality and ensure that all obstacles, such as vandalism of our infrastructure and stealing of cables, are stopped.”
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