GMM Mayor believes sabotage is at root of Bethal’s water crisis
A post on GMM’s Facebook page on February 1, pointed out farmers are unlawfully using tap water to irrigate their crops as an identified practice, affecting the flow of water to the Bethal reservoirs.
The water crisis in Bethal and eMzinoni is a deliberate man-made act. The Govan Mbeki Municipality’s Mayor Nhlakanipho Zuma said this during a meeting with the Ridge Times editor last Monday.
Zuma responded to concerns about the water crisis in both Bethal and eMzinoni.
He said Bethal’s previous water problems almost two years ago were sorted out to prevent a similar problem.
According to Zuma, Rand Water is pumping water at full capacity and there is supposed to be ample water supply to the town.
“Suddenly, we were again faced with a water crisis and we knew something was wrong.
“There is no way that communities from Bethal and eMzinoni should experience a water crisis with the kind of infrastructure we have.”
According to Zuma, neither load-shedding nor throttling is causing the water shortage and the reservoirs should have been filling up because of uninterrupted pumping.
The mayor said the municipality, Rand Water and Sasol have united to find the cause of the problem.
The municipality and Rand Water has installed check meters at Trichardt last week to measure the water volume that is being pumped to Bethal and also to measure the volume of water that arrives in Bethal.
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“The volume of water being pumped and the volume of water for which we are billed indicated that eMzinoni and Bethal should get sufficient water. However, this is not happening.”
He said this indicates sabotage and the investigation team is tracking down the problem.
“We have our suspicions. There are currently no major leaks in the infrastructure that can be the reason people don’t get water. If we have a particular breakdown, we will inform our community until it is fixed.”
Zuma believes there is a deliberate human act at the bottom of the crisis.
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“There must be people who are aware of who is tampering with our infrastructure, but they are not coming forward. They cannot claim not understanding the cost to the community.”
He appealed to the community to report any act of vandalism in their areas to law enforcement agencies.
A post on GMM’s Facebook page on February 1, pointed out farmers are unlawfully using tap water to irrigate their crops, as an identified practice affecting the flow of water to the Bethal reservoirs.
The post stated the municipality is doing everything in its power to restore normal water supply to affected areas in Bethal and eMzinoni, even though their reservoir levels are low and are leading to water interruption or low pressure, especially in the high-lying areas.
