“I paid my bribe, but where is my water?”

Amidst a severe shortage of water in the Vhembe District, allegations are being made that officials within the Vhembe District Municipality are taking bribes in exchange for delivering water. Seemingly, these fraudsters are also not very honourable, simply taking the money without delivering any water.

Limpopo Mirror was contacted earlier this week by an irate 35-year-old lady from Mvuso Park, Thohoyandou Ext 3. She claimed that the area had had no running water for five weeks.

“We are really suffering and some of us cannot afford to drill an own borehole,” she said. “Last year, around November, I approached the Vhembe water section offices, complaining about the lack of water, and a gentleman in the office said they did not deliver free water. He printed out a sheet of prices, where he showed me on that paper that I had to pay R10 000 for a 10 000-litre tank to be delivered to me.”

She was told that the 10 000-litre tank was a once-off delivery. She begged the man’s understanding and said that all she could afford was R1000. “He said I should hand the cash to him, so that he could arrange some water for me,” she said. “This was now a bribe and I had no choice but to send him a R1 000 via E-wallet. He delivered water for me twice in December, but I have not heard from him since. This year I went to the offices several times, so he could arrange water for me again, but I couldn’t find him.”

She said the area where she stayed had been without water for the duration of the lockdown period. Residents are very frustrated because the only effective way of preventing the spread of the Covid-19 disease was to stay clean.

“How do we wash our bodies?” she said. “Even today I have been without water from early in the morning. I had to find a private tanker that delivered water at a cost of R700. I am really suffering. Just imagine an adult like me washing my underwear with the water which I had just bathed in – is that a normal practice?”

She stated that the municipality’s tankers would deliver water to the people at certain times, but that water was not enough. “If you manage to fill up six 20-litre buckets and they do not come again for the next four to six weeks, are those buckets going to last you for that period?” she said. “We need a long-lasting plan to solve this issue. Late today I saw people lining buckets on the streets, and how are you expected to spend years and years using buckets in a household that uses flushing toilets? We stay with shit in our houses. The last time I washed my clothes was some five weeks ago. One just has to make sure that one wears one skirt for over a week or two.”

She said she stayed about 500 metres away from a village that received its water from the Nandoni dam. “Why not us? I am angry and I refuse to stay in an area where I have to buy water from my neighbour while I also pay for municipal services. Maybe I should just go and bath at the ward councillor’s yard, because the ward councillor is failing me. Maybe I must break the lockdown rules and go and bath there.”

Vhembe District Municipality’s spokesperson, Mr Maṱodzi Ralushai, said that the Vonḓo Dam was unable to supply water to all townships, which included Mvuso Park, because of the old pipeline in use. “The pipes are thinner because they were designed when there was still a lower volume of households,” he said. “As a result, we open the water rotationally to allow all townships to get it, which is sometimes an easy procedure. Hence, we have started delivering water tanks to the area, including Mvuso Park, who got water yesterday (Monday). There are contractors who were working on a project which will ensure that the area gets running water, but they have stopped as of now. The project was aimed to be completed in 2021.”

He added that the municipality did not have a system of selling water or tanks to residents. “This is corruption at its worst, which involved both the said official and the woman in question,” Ralushai said. “We urge people to report all cases of corruption to the higher authorities within the municipality.”

He said the municipality would continue to deliver water tanks to the designated areas that were most affected by the lack of water.

Date:17 April 2020

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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