Ventersdorp residents face never-ending problems

Since a transformer belonging to Eskom collapsed after the substation caught fire in December last year, Ventersdorp residents have had an issue with power outages in various sections of the town.

For weeks, residents have voiced their frustrations on social media, about the struggles of being without power for hours, if not days, on end. Soon after, out of nowhere, the issue seemed to be resolved and under control.

Recently, however, Phakisi Goliath of Extension 2 says it is back to haunt them once again. With the never-ending load- shedding crisis, Phakisi says they often sit in the dark during hours outside of the load-shedding schedule. “The power would be scheduled to come back at a certain time, but, recently, instead of returning at a set time, we could have anything between two to three extra hours without power,” he explained.

“In the beginning, we thought this was happening because of so much load shedding, but it has become normal and nothing is being done about it.

” Just when residents thought their only concern was the rolling black-outs, the old issue of spending days without water resurfaced. According to Welile Phokela, an-other concerned resident, the issue of the lack of water, particularly in extensions 2 and 3 in Ward 29, started 10 to 15 years ago.

“At first, residents could get water from running taps, but even then, it was a struggle. The water would only run at certain times, to the extent that residents would wake up in the early hours of the morning, hoping to get their buckets filled,” Phokela explained.

According to Phokela, the issue has been reported to the municipality on numerous occasions, but their complaints have fallen on deaf ears for months. “After more complaints came in, the municipality resorted to outsourcing about four trucks to deliver water across the location,” Phokela explained.

The problem with this solution is that the trucks are often delayed and residents are left to struggle without water. “Besides the water being unsafe to drink, residents are struggling and living in unhealthy conditions due to the lack of water,” Phokela said.

“As we speak, the whole of Ext. 3 is riddled with filth because residents cannot flush their toilets. We cannot continue living like this.” Since the beginning of this year, the issue has become much worse, leaving residents to survive for days without any water.

Another resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said it was unfair that the municipality was paying for trucks to render a service and yet they often spent days without this basic essential. “Has it come to this? Must we beg the municipality for our livelihood?” he lamented.

Phokela added that the constant power outages made the issue worse as water cannot be pumped when there is no electricity. This affects schools and small businesses in the area. According to him, the overall state of service delivery, in general, is extremely poor and something needs to be done.

Very soon, the residents will call a shutdown to demonstrate that enough is enough and they demand proper service delivery. Besides the many other pressing issues, residents aim to voice the water issue as well.

“Water is being taken without ad-dressing the community. How are we supposed to survive?” another resident asked. The Herald asked the municipality for comment but none was forth-coming by the time of going to print.