The DA Leader in Mpumalanga, Jane Sithole, today conducted an oversight to inspect the water reservoirs in eMalahleni Local Municipality in light of serious water problems in the area.
For nine years, the DA has proposed that the municipality curb water losses by replacing the existing water infrastructure in the municipality. However, the DA’s solutions to fix the water crisis has been ignored by the incompetent ANC government.
Currently, eMalahleni obtains its water supply from the Department of Water and Sanitation and the municipality owes the entity R200 million for water provision as at the end of June 2021; the municipality also owes Anglo Operations just over R46 million.
Since 2013, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has received numerous complaints of frequent interruptions in the water supply of the municipality largely due to poor maintenance of the existing water infrastructure, high water losses of around 66%, inability to pay water service providers and a lack of capacity on the part of the municipality.
Responding to the SAHRC in 2018 the municipality cited capacity constraints in which the water demand was at 150 ML/day; whereas the municipality was only able to supply 120 ML/day. This situation has further been exacerbated by population growth in the municipality.
In 2013, The Commission proved the DA right when they investigated the complaint which was accompanied by 4000 signatures from eMalahleni residents. The Commission found that by failing to provide residents with sufficient and clean water, the municipality violated their rights enshrined in Section 27 of the Constitution and residents’ rights to human dignity.
While the municipality’s water demand is continuously increasing, the ANC is continuing to fail in its duty to meet the demand.
The water cuts have intensified so much over the years, that residents either go for weeks without water or are getting sick allegedly due to the questionable quality of water as a result of discoloration. The situation became so bad that in 2019, the municipality introduced “water-shedding”.
Burst pipes, aging infrastructure, and power outages further compound the prolonged water cuts in recent times. Just last week, Hospital was without water for more than a week.
The DA has submitted many proposals to deal with the water outages in the municipality but the municipality has failed to give effect to these proposals. It is clear that the ANC is incapable of governing eMalahleni Local Municipality. This municipality is in desperate need of a solutions-based party with a track record of getting things done. That party is the DA.
Only the DA can turn around eMalahleni and stop these water outages and we urge the voters of this community to check their registration status and to use their votes to usher in a DA-administration that can get things done.