Pretoria - Touched by the plight of Hammanskraal residents struggling to gain access to drinkable water, four entrepreneurs operating a water business decided to put profit aside and provide water for free to communities.
Their selfless decision was made after the City of Tshwane shut down the operation at the Temba water treatment plant, which supplies residents with water, due to faulty equipment requiring maintenance.
Residents have complained that water coming out of their taps was greenish and brownish in colour.
Although the City has deployed roaming water tankers, some residents complained that the location where water was delivered was far away from them.
One of the entrepreneurs, Bhuti Sithole, said yesterday they were moved by the stories posted on social media from people complaining about brownish water coming out of their taps.
The four also posted on social media, calling for people to fetch water from #Hashtag entertainment centre, where they operated in Dilopye.
Sithole said they ventured into the water business by chance after the outbreak of Covid-19.
They were making a living as event managers, organising musical gigs.
Since the outbreak they stopped organising gigs because of the regulations restricting the number of people allowed to attend events.
"Because we were no longer making an income and due to unemployment we thought of other means of making money," Sithole said.
While at their wit's end about how they would make a living, they came across someone running a water business in Pretoria.
“We started stocking water from him, and we sold it to tuckshops. We found that the water business is in fact very lucrative.”
After a good start they took a leap of faith and started their own water business, which included purifying water before reselling it to customers.
“The four of us; Gomolemo Mangwathe, Keletso Moagi, Dipuo Moagi and myself purchased a water purifying machine,” he said.
Sithole said that immediately after installing the machine they came across many social media posts from people complaining about the water in Hammanskraal.
Moved by stories of how people struggled to have access to drinkable water, the four decided it was time to plough back to communities.
Sithole said that although Dilopye fell under the Greater Hammanskraal area, people there were provided with water from Soshanguve, which was drinkable. “However, when you venture into a water business you need to have the water purification machine and a certificate for reselling water, which we have applied for and are still waiting for,” he said.
He said they were willing to work together with the community through their business.
“We are waiting for the certificate so that we can start packaging water and reselling it under the label ’LIfe Is’,” he said.
Pretoria News