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The company tried to bar the sewage from flooding their yard by placing stone slabs and plastic sheets along the fencing.

Mabirimisa diverts stinking sewage river

 

The general manager of the Mabirimisa Bus Service, Mr Robert Mabirimisa, was not very impressed when he visited the Vhembe Municipality's water department office in Makhado and discovered that the duty register said that the sewerage problem at the bus depot had been attended to, which reflects the opposite of the truth in the case.

Last week, Limpopo Mirror carried a story stating that the company was very upset after a municipal official threatened them with arrest if they should continue diverting the problematic river of sewage which had flooded the depot's yard since June.

“I went to confront Mr David Mukosi (Vhembe District Municipality's manager of water services in Makhado) with our problem, but he was not in the office,” said Mabirimisa. “That was when I noticed a register book on the table, with the name of our company and the word 'Done' written in front of it.”

Mabirimisa then inquired about the meaning of 'Done' alongside the company's name. The lady who was in the office informed him that it meant that the problem had been fixed.

“I got so furious that I called Mr Mukosi, even though his phone had been on voice mail when I last tried to get hold of him in the morning,” Mabirimisa said. “My call went through and, when he heard that it was me, he accused me of lying to the newspapers about his name and the fact that the sewerage problem had not been fixed.”

Mabirimisa indicated that he eventually informed Mukosi that there was a register at the bus depot's entrance, where every visitor had to sign in first before entering the premises. The municipal workers would have signed the register if they had come, said Mabirimisa. “He then told me that the workers who had supposedly visited the site (depot) were then misinforming him,” Mabrimisa explained.

The company tried to bar the sewage from flooding their yard by placing stone slabs and plastic sheets along the fencing, but the stinking water still flowed into the yard. They then decided on Tuesday to divert the sewage from flooding the back of their building.

“We hired a TLB to divert the sewage in the opposite direction,” he said. “We are no longer afraid of their arrest threats because, even if our building finally crumbles down due to this dirty water, they will not pay us a cent. So far, we have used our own money to see doctors after hazardous sewage caused a terrible flu.”

Ever since the problem started last month, the company has suffered financial damages calculated at about R40 000. “At one time, our big compressor was damaged by the water from this dam and we had to get it fixed at around R30 000,” Mabirimisa said. The raw sewage also affected the paving, back walls and ground badly.

The sewerage system from and outside the LTT Abbatoir has been dysfunctional for years, and it formed an odorous dam along the road and the railway lines across Malherbe Street. It seemed that Transnet had complained about the perpetual mess which flooded the rail lines (and was damaging the rail infrastructure as well) and the municipality had to divert the sewage to the depot's yard, said Mabirimisa.

On Tuesday, Vhembe District Municipality's media liaison officer, Mr Moses Shibambu, said he had yet again contacted different officials at the Makhado office, who all informed him that the sewerage problem had been fixed.

However, Mabirimisa indicated that the company remained shocked and appalled by the municipality's unhelpful attitude towards the very people who paid for services in the municipality. “I am now labelled a liar when I speak out,” he said.

The spot where the sewage seemingly starts spilling.
Mr Robert Mabirimisa stands near the new trench which the company dug to divert the sewage from damaging their building.
 

Date:18 July 2014

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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