DA councillor Saal de Jager tells OFM News the municipality has over the years failed in its efforts to ensure residents have enough and sufficient water, among others. 

He says one of the water reservoirs built in the area supplied the municipality with an extra ten megalitres of water a day. However, today it is a white elephant and there are no proper or clear intentions to refurbish it. He says the lack of maintenance has stifled the efforts of the municipality to provide clean and enough water to residents.

“In 2016, we realised we do not have enough water for the community. We built a new plant, which was called the Trident Plant. It's a package purification plant and gave us an extra ten megalitres of water a day, which was enough extra water. So, now we had the two old plants, with one giving us five megalitres of water and the other also giving us ten. With this new one, we now had 25 megalitres a day and we had no water problems.

“Everybody had enough water. I’m not saying we couldn’t have gotten away with using less water because there were lots of spillages in the townships and even in town. People don’t fix leaking toilets. They just let it run. As a result, lots of water is wasted. 

“In December 2017, the new plant was taken into commission. For three years after that, in other words in 2018, 2019 and 2020, we had enough water in Parys. We had no water problems.”

De Jager said the contractor, who built the plant, used to also maintain it. After the three-year contract with the municipality, the contractor was told not to carry out further maintenance of the plant and that's when the decline of the water supply started.

“After these three years, the contractor asked them ‘do you want me to carry on with the maintenance of the plant’ and they said no they will do it themselves. Within a couple of months, the plant's production started going down until now – it's standing there as a white elephant. It doesn't produce any clean water. So in my mind, what we need to do as quickly as possible, is to fix that plant. It was working. Get it running again and we will have enough water at least to take us through this period,” De Jager said.

OFM News previously reported that residents of Tumahole and other parts have been hit hard by the effects of water-shedding for at least two years. Without tankers delivering water, residents say they are forced to go to extreme measures to access water. Pictures doing the rounds on social media show senior citizens carrying buckets and fetching water from manholes around the area.

ALSO READ: Free State residents ‘forced to fetch water from manholes’

Meanwhile, the mayor of the Ngwathe Municipality, Victoria de Beers-Mthombeni, recently told residents that the municipality is unable to distribute water via water tankers due to “restrictions placed by residents”.

‘Unable to distribute water via tankers’

“This has made it even more challenging for us to ensure that everyone has access to clean and safe water,” she said.

De Beers-Mthombeni said some challenges faced in providing water are due to damage to infrastructure caused by acts of criminality.

Recently, Free State Premier Mxolisi Dukwana met some of the most troubled municipalities at the OR Tambo House in Bloemfontein over water issues.

ALSO READ: Free State premier meets with municipalities over water issues

During the meeting, Premier Dukwana vowed it wouldn’t be business as usual for underperforming municipalities across the province, where water shortages, among other service delivery issues, have left residents fuming.

ALSO READ: ‘It won’t be business as usual’ – Free State premier

During the meeting in Bloemfontein, Dukwana told officials there's a need to ensure that available water is jealously reserved for the benefit of the people, especially with water being a scarce resource.

“According to the Department of Water and Sanitation, some of the major water challenges include leakages and old infrastructure which has not been serviced or maintained for a long time. Criminality has also been cited as one of the main reasons for the unavailability of water in most communities, as rogue elements often steal infrastructure,” he added.

Dukwana also cautioned that the reason for flare-ups after water shortages was a result of failure by municipalities to properly communicate with residents. He urged mayors to be bold and courageous in addressing challenges faced by communities.

OFM News