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Residents in Maquassi Hills Local Municipality were once again left without water this past weekend due to the municipality’s failure to pay its account with Sedibeng Water.
Due to this non-payment, Sedibeng Water could not pay its service providers and ran out of water purification chemicals, specifically coagulant and ferric chloride, that treats the water from the Vaal River and as a result could not supply purified potable water to the municipality and the community.
The municipality owes Sedibeng Water R230 million, according to an agreement, the municipality would make a R12 million payment every quarter from the equitable share while continuing to make monthly payments of R500,000.00 to the account. Maquassi Hills Local Municipality failed to honour it’s agreement and defaulted on payments for the last 3 months.
The same problem occurred last year December and residents were forced to spend five days without water.
It is concerning that during this Covid-19 pandemic old age homes, clinics and the Nic Bodenstein Hospital suffer interruption to the water supply and had to resort to alternative measures. The hospital had to use boreholes.
The old age home and residents, in general, had to purchase water from service providers.
The municipality does not have sufficient water tankers to assist all areas when the water is cut off.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has already engaged with the Provincial Treasury, urging them to ringfence the equitable share fund to ensure that payments to entities such as Sedibeng Water and Eskom are facilitated.
The DA will also write to the acting Municipal Manager, Jeffrey Leisesane, requesting him to initiate a debt collection plan for all the areas where the municipality cannot enforce its debt collection policy to assist the municipality with its revenue so it can service its debt.
Water is a basic human right, and it is unacceptable that the municipality’s failure to properly manage its affairs leads to constant water cuts.