Tshwane Metro condemns the act of deliberate sabotage of water infrastructure in Rethabiseng, near Bronkhorstspruit, Pretoria that has caused a prolonged water outage.

According to the metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba, the act of sabotage by unscrupulous people close to the Rethabiseng valve has resulted in water gushing out into the veld.

This has compounded the issue of residents of Rethabiseng and Ekangala not having a water supply.

He said some parts of Region 7 experienced a prolonged water outage this week, which has since been resolved.

“It has come to the city’s attention that there [was] a deliberate act of sabotage in Rethabiseng, aimed at denying the residents their human right of access to water.”

He said some of the city’s customers in Region 7 were forced to endure a prolonged water outage following complications that developed when the city’s technicians were fixing a major leak on a main bulk pipeline that supplies Zithobeni Reservoir, last Wednesday.

“Water supply has since been restored to all the low-lying areas, except in high-lying areas of Ekanganla and Rethabiseng.”

Bokaba said the sabotage act of opening the valve may be one of the contributing factors to why those two areas still don’t have water.

“Technicians have rushed to the site and closed the Rethabiseng valve tightly and are still inspecting other valves to ensure that they are closed.”

It is clear that some people tampered with the valve with the devious objective of denying residents access to water, says Bokaba.

 

Tshwane City Manager Johann Mettler also condemned this act of sabotage and labelled it evil and barbaric.

“When you open a valve so that people can’t have water supply, it shows that you don’t have a conscience and intend killing people. That’s evil and barbaric.

“We condemn such behaviour, and hope that law enforcement will investigate this criminal act and bring the perpetrators to book”, Mettler said.

Also read: Water to Ekangala and Rethabiseng delayed due to infrastructure tampering

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