Water supply problems attributed to illegal connections

GA-MASEMOLA – The debacle of illegal water connections continues to rear its ugly head in parts of Sekhukhune district, negatively impacting on the municipality’s effort to provide the commodity equitably without hindrance to all residents.

To help mitigate the problem, which disrupts proper delivery of water services by the water authority, Sekhukhune District Municipality Executive Mayor, Minah Bahula, accompanied by Member of the Mayoral Committee responsible for Water Infrastructure and Sanitation, Mabatane Mathale, visited Ga-Masemola Village in Makhuduthamaga Local Municipality to actively address the water supply concerns of the residents on September 6.

The visit comes after the residents in the area of wards 27, 28 and 29 raised concerns about the inconsistent water supply which in the main is attributed to the scourge of illegal water connections by some community members and pipe leakages, together with other factors.

Lemson Moropjane, SDM spokesperson, informed that the area receives water from the Masemola Water Purification Plant, which serves over 30 villages.

Executive Mayor Bahula instructed the district’s operation and maintenance team to be on the ground starting from Saturday, 7 September, to look into the cause of residents’ concerns and fix the water pipe leakages in favour of the provision of consistent, equitable and sustainable water supply to all communities.

At the end of last month, the operations and maintenance team discovered problematic illegal water connections in Mogaladi Village, also within Makhuduthamaga, after similar concerns about inconsistent water supply were raised by residents in the area of 30.

It was then revealed that some residents in the new settlements of Mogaladi area had unlawfully connected their households to the main pipeline.

Bahula has since strongly condemned the acts by some residents as the practice tampers with the flow of water supply, impacting the broader community’s access.

In response, the team, in collaboration with Lepelle Northern Water, agreed on the need to install a new pipeline from the reservoir in Mogaladi to ensure a stable and reliable supply.