WHILE Middelburg residents face water shortages on a daily basis, frustrations are mounting against commonage farmers who continue to vandalise pipes every week.
Many previous attempts have been made by officials from Inxuba Yethemba Municipality and the Middelburg Forum to discuss the problem with commonage farmers, but a permanent solution has not been found.
“The pipes are simply chopped open to provide drinking water for animals roaming on commonage grounds. However, quite often, these areas are not even technically commonage grounds, but residential areas.
“When the pipes are sabotaged, water supply is cut off to that area,” said forum chairperson, Engela Kruger. “Copious amounts of water are wasted as these deliberately created leakages are neglected, until that entire area’s water pressure is affected. Our requests to the farmers to install proper water troughs with automatic valves have fallen on deaf ears.”
What further frustrates residents is the fact that neither Chris Hani District Municipality nor IYM has the finances or material to fix the pipes.
“This is exactly why we encourage residents to join the Middelburg Water Crisis fund,” said Kruger. “The aim of the crisis fund is not to replace a municipality, but to act in crisis times to ensure that residents and businesses can continue their daily activities, especially in light of the fact that our local governments have proven themselves incapable of acting on the many water shortages and crises we have been facing recently.”
Last week, commonage farmers again cut a major supply pipe in Midros. The matter was reported to CHDM who undertook to fix it, but almost a week later, officials admitted to having no general maintenance material available.
Finally, the Middelburg Forum decided to step in and the leakage was fixed by a private plumber.
“We still urge members of the public to report leakages to the CHDM standby water technicians on 083 461 5658. It is their duty to protect our water resources which are currently insufficient,” said Kruger.
Any person who witnesses water pipelines being deliberately damaged can report the matter to the Middelburg SAPD at 049 802 1113.
