Note to Broadcasters: Please find attached soundbites in English and Afrikaans by Arista Annandale
The DA will open a case with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) against the Mahikeng Local Municipality and North West Department of Health for the sewage that has been pushing up into Danville Extension residents’ houses during the rainy season. This sewage flow has occurred since the Nelson Mandela Highway has been upgraded. (See picture here)
An oversight inspection to the site yesterday, 2 December 2024, revealed that the Bophelong Psychiatric Hospital’s sewage pump is out of order (see picture) resulting in raw sewage flowing next to the highway.
The stormwater pipes in this vicinity are all blocked (see pictures here, here and here), causing the sewage to flood into residential houses across the road.
Residents allege that this problem started after the road has been upgraded, as no provision was made to also upgrade the stormwater system. It is also alleged that the hospital’s sewage pump was last serviced in 2017, which briefly improved the situation until about four years back when it fell into disrepair.
The DA made several calls to the municipality to address this crisis, to no avail.
The DA will write to the Department of Health to urgently attend to the non-functioning sewage pump to ensure that the sewage ends up at the Wastewater Treatment Plant and not in the Mahikeng Game Reserve, Molopo River or next to the road where it is harmful to people and animals.
Poor services of this magnitude is harmful to residents and deserve urgent attention.