Pump station vandalism hits hard on communities

MOUTSE – The Waalkraal pump station erected to provide Moutse East and West, Philadelphia Hospital, Moutse Mall, Moteti, Marapong and surrounding areas with water has been vandalized with allegedly 80 percent of the system found missing.

Now members of the community there are faced with going without water services this festive season due to the act of vandalism.

The area is currently lacking water services and most villagers still forced to fetch water from the available sources they share with animals.

In the past months the area saw residents taking to the streets in fierce protests as an attempt to get the authorities to attend to their problems.

And in an about turn, the residents are putting blame on the municipality as they claim the municipality was reluctant to attend to the vandalized system as speed.

They allege that Sekhukhune District Municipality (SDM), as a water authority in the district, was not sending water tankers to help the residents in their predicament.

However, Moloko Moloto, SDM Spokesperson, informed that the pump station did not belong to the district municipality.

“Remember the district municipality has service providers, also we have contracted this pump station to another municipality to provide our people that side with water,” indicated Moloto.

Moloto said the difficulty was that even if the pump station was not the district municipality’s, it impacted negatively on the people who fell under Sekhukhune district in that area.

“We acknowledge the impact this situation has on the peole in the area who fall under the district municipality,” said Moloto.

Attempts to get comment from JS Moroka municipality to which the pump station belongs were not successful at the time of going to press.