Residents in Hartbeesfontein and Tigane constantly spend days without water due to burst pipes that the City of Matlosana fails to fix timeously.
On 31 May 2021, a pipe burst at the Rietkuil pump station. The municipality repaired the pipe, but due to loadshedding, water couldn’t be pumped, leaving residents dry for two days.
The following day, a pump at Lorraine street pump station had to be replaced which left residents without water for a day and a half.
Last week Monday, four pipes feeding the reservoir from Lorraine street station came apart, leaving residents without water for nearly six days.
The maintenance team from the Water Department does not have the right equipment to repair burst pipes. Workers also work under unsafe conditions as they are not provided with personal protective equipment when they go into the field to attend to service delivery issues.
There is a severe shortage of spare parts at the municipality which makes it difficult for the workers to fix even the smallest pipe bursts.
Residents not only have to endure long periods of water supply disruptions, but also constant electricity supply failures, which causes great frustration.
The DA has on several occasions engaged with the municipality even raising it during Portfolio Committee meetings requesting that they regularly maintain the water infrastructure, however, due to a complete collapse in services the municipality failed to attend to these problems.
The DA is encouraged to see that under the complete failure of the ANC-governed Matlosana Municipality, the business community are increasingly assisting residents with basic services, especially water supply.
The DA would like to applaud the Supreme Poultry Abattoir for stepping in and securing water to the community by supplying water pipes at an enormous cost and availing their maintenance personnel to fit and install the burst pipes.
It is unacceptable that the municipality failed to resolve this. It is not the responsibility of taxpayers and businesses to fix burst pipes and render services in place of the municipality.
The DA will raise this issue in the next Council meeting, demanding the municipality to implement a turnaround strategy that will improve service delivery, particularly the turnaround time in fixing water infrastructure.
Where the DA governs, in the Western Cape, service delivery concerns are attended to promptly to ensure that residents are not left without services such as water for a long time. This is the kind of good governance we want to bring to the City of Matlosana.