Ventersdorp residences continue to face water crisis

For years, residents in Ventersdorp have had water shortages. While many areas throughout the J.B. Marks municipality are affected by this issue, residents in Extension 3, Ventersdorp, argue that they feel it the most.

According to Jeanette Tshite, municipal spokesperson, the challenge of water in Ventersdorp is due to various stages of load shedding. “Over and above that, there has been a generator with a damaged water pump since early December 2022. The generator had been purchased in the erstwhile Ventersdorp local municipality in 2007,” she said.

However, residents argue that this has been an ongoing issue for over a decade. To make matters worse, the issue is slowly starting to spread to other extensions where as previously, only extension 3 residents were severely affected.

According to residents at first, the community had access to water from running taps, but even then, it was a struggle. The water would only run at certain times, to the extent where residents would wake up in the early hours of the morning. At the moment residents are even lucky if anything comes out.

In an effort to fix the mess, the municipality has outsourced trucks to deliver water across the location. However, the problem with this solution is that the trucks are often delayed and residents are left to struggle without water. “Our residents are struggling and living in unhealthy conditions due to the lack of water,” Welile Phokela, a resident in ward 29 said.

More often than not, the entire extension 3 area is riddled with filth because residents cannot flush their toilets. Which also affects schools and small businesses in the area.

Tshite says the municipality has submitted a business plan as well as a technical report to the Department of Water & Sanitation for financial assistance. “The purpose thereof was to address challenges that members of the community have been encountering for some time,” she said.

“In addittion to that, we are in the process of procuring the generator in Ventersdorp as a temporary measure to source water during load shedding. Furthermore, we are in the process of isolating our water plants and reservoirs from the grid in order to be exempted by Eskom during their load shedding schedules,” Tshite added.