Moloto - Thembisile Hani Local Municipality in Mpumalanga has been hit by a water crisis that has seen residents of Moloto village being forced to buy the scarce resource from enterprising vendors who have drilled boreholes.
Taps at the homes of several villages in the municipality and the KwaMhlanga town are often dry, prompting residents to demand of newly-elected municipality mayor, Nomsa Mtsweni, to come up with a solution.
Moloto resident Maria Masilela told the African News Agency (ANA) that she has been buying water from her fellow resident, Collins Sebothoma, who has a borehole in his yard, for more than a year. She said water sometimes came out of her home tap late at night for a period of about 20 minutes.
“I cannot always stay awake late at night waiting for water from the tap,” said the unemployed mother of two. “The main problem is that I spend R50 a week from the social grant of my children to buy water. Pushing a wheelbarrow to go and buy water every day is also not good for my health because I get tired and cannot easily do other household chores.”
Sebothoma is one of a number of residents who have dug boreholes in their yards and sell water to other residents at a cost of R2 for a 20-litre bucket. “I started selling water two years ago in order to help other residents,” said Sebothoma.
Another resident, Lucas Masango, said: “I spend about R200 a week to buy water from a truck that often comes here because I need a lot of it to build my house.”
When ANA visited Moloto village recently, there were water tanks in the yards of many homes which the residents said were installed by the municipality. However, most of the tanks had no water.
KwaMhlanga resident Jacob Mahlangu said the situation was worse in his town because his house and many others in his neighbourhood had flushing toilets. “You cannot flush a toilet effectively using water from a bucket. Our new mayor must make a plan because we don't want to live like this,” he said.
Spokeswoman for the Thembisile Hani Local Municipality, Simphiwe Mashiyane, described the shortage of water as a “big problem”, but insisted the municipality was dealing with it. “Our trucks deliver water into the tanks at homes in many villages, but this is not enough because the water problem affects the whole municipality,” she said. “We are working on a feasibility study for a project that will bring water from Loskop Dam (about 50 kilometres from Middleburg). There are also two projects that we have started which will soon bring more water to the municipality.”
Mashiyane partly attributed the water crisis to what she called residents' refusal to pay for water. She said the municipality was currently spending R10 million every month to buy water as a result of non-payment for the resource.
African News Agency