ANC Sekhukhune Region Convenes Water Provision Session
Jane Furse
The Regional Secretary of the African National Congress (ANC) in Sekhukhune, Tala Mathope, said consequence management should apply to government employees who fail to speed-up the provision of water to residents of the district municipality.
Mathope said during the ANC Sekhukhune Regional water provision engagement session, held at Jane Furse Comprehensive School on Thursday 26 December.
The session was attended by members of the ANC Regional Executive Committee (REC), ANC Youth League, alliance partners and other ANC affiliated structures.
The party said the session was convened to receive feedback on the progress recorded by Sekhukhune District Municipality (SDM) in dealing with water challenges since the previous engagement.
Addressing the structures, Mathope said he was disappointed by the progress made to date and lambasted both the officials and ANC deployees, to the district municipality due to indecisiveness in dealing with water challenges.
“Water provision is very crucial in repositioning and reclaiming the position on the ANC in communities. Anyone who stands against this programme of providing water to our people will be dealt with harshly,” warned Mathope.
He indicated that it is unacceptable to have little progress by now, especially in ensuring that repairs and maintenance function get devolved to local municipality.
“The ANC has full powers to redeploy councillors that fail to hold the administration accountable to effectively. If the accounting officer has deadwood in the system, consequence management must be implemented,” he said.
The session resolved to revamp the Rapid Response Teams (RRT) in clusters until the municipal level and further decided to establish the monitoring and evaluation team, which will strengthen the Office of the Regional Secretary.
“The ANC is confident that there will be no stone left unturned until the people of Sekhukhune land have access to safe drinking water,” concluded Mathope.
Sekhukhune is one of the areas currently experiencing a serious shortage of drinkable water, with some of residents resorting to fetching drinking water from nearest rivers, wells and streams.
Other community members survive by drilling boreholes in their yards as a permanent solution to the problem.
Billions of rands were since allocated for major water provision projects such as the De Hoop Dam Project, Moutse Bulk Water Supply Project, Moutse Draught Relief Projects and the Malekana Water Treatment Plant. However, the projects were never completed due to alleged corruption and tender irregularities within the district municipality.
