Jackaroo residents receive grim news
After about 45 minutes into the meeting many attendees who had hoped to hear good news had decided that they have heard enough and walked out, not able to bear anymore of the grim situation.
“At point A the water is now standing at 15 percent. You can walk through it and it will hardly reach your knees,” said the director while addressing the residents of Jackaroo Park who have been without water for almost two weeks.
The municipality is treading water as they try to keep up services to an ever growing city with an outdated infrastructure.
“The demand is higher than the supply,” he explained at the meeting held on April 29.
The area councillor who is a member of the DA organised an open meeting with the municipal manager Mr Theo van Vuuren and the Director of technical services Mr Kgodiso Mashile. Many community members from Jackaroo Park attended to hear what the situation is with regards to receiving service delivery.
They explained to the community that pumping water into the reservoir at point A which feeds Die Heuwel, Branchville and Jackaroo Park among other areas does not receive water fast enough before the water it does have store up is used. Higher areas get water after the lower areas simply because that is how the system is built.
The director said that Jojo tanks being filled up at every second house results in other houses not receiving water at all. He urged the community to only fill their tanks up by 10 percent.
Mr Theo Van Vuuren at the meeting with director of technical services Mr Kgodiso Mashile and Jackaroo Park residents on April 29.
This statement was met with grunts and sceptical looks.
“You can’t blame the Jojo tanks for the reason we don’t have water. We got tanks because we sit without water for weeks on end. This is not a new problem,” said an anonymous attendee.
The grim news in a nutshell is that the reason we have power outages and water issues is not as simple as a burst pipe or a blown transformer but years’ worth of poor planning, and outdated infrastructures that is not going to get fixed anytime soon. Complied with the corruption within government (with was also mentioned) and criminal activity of stealing copper cables and illegal water supplies it seems that the people of eMalahleni will continue to be victims of circumstance.
They also highlighted bigger issues such as policing illegal water connections and over-usage. The Law Enforcement Unit meant to enforce municipal by-laws in a city of 500 thousand people consists of only 32 people. If your neighbour has the sprinklers on hours a day Mr van Vuuren suggests talking to your neighbour about it since it is not possible for them to respond to each complaint.
They have signed contracts with Glencore to receive additional water supply from Ogies which will feed into the new formalised developments such as the one in Klarinet. Theo hopes this will stop the need for illegal connections and that it will add to the income of the city. He added that refusing any new developments is not good for the long term growth of the city even though the current system is buckling under the immense strain of the current demand.
After about 45 minutes into the meeting many attendees who had hoped to hear good news had decided that they have heard enough and walked out, not able to bear anymore of the grim situation.
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