SEKHUKHUNE MEDIA HOUSES COME TOGETHER FOR A GOOD CAUSE
By James Godfrey
Jane Furse: On Thursday people of Sekhukhune District were served a delicious current affairs dish which was prepared from four different pots Sekhukhune FM, Tubatse FM, Limpopo Publishing Media TV, MASCOM FM and Timeless News. Main Course on the menu was the scarcity of water in Sekhukhune, which compelled the organizers of the debate to invite all political parties in the district to be part of the debate and we also had a fair representation of civil society movements which was represented by the Consultative Development Forum under the astute leadership of Mr Sepadi Motau who is a water specialist, tin their Villages . Motau took the audience through different phases of water supply in Sekhukhune District, ” let me start by demystifying the myth that says we don’t have enough water sources in Sekhukhune District thats a fallacy, in Limpopo we have ten water authority municipalities and Sekhukhune District Municipality is one of those water authorities, we have Flag Boshielo, Piet Goose, Dehoop and Loskop Dam which we share with Nkangala District Municipality in Mpumalanga. I think we lack political will that should be enforcing policy imperative measures in the area of monitoring and evaluation and holding municipal administrators accountable for not implementing some of the council resolutions on supplying our communities with potable water” concluded Motau.
The debate got off to an interesting start when one of the event organizers and the business leader of Timeless News Thulane Madalane had a burst up with the leaders of two political parties EFF and NCC who rejected one of the ground rules of not hauling and insulting one another in particular those who were not part of the debate. Afterwards the debate started in earnest members of the community stated water related challenges that they are facing from their different areas, the most dominant frustration from most community members was lack of consistent supply of potable water. Many lamented the fact they still have to draw unclean water from rivers or buy water from private sellers who charge them exorbitant amounts of money just to fill their Jojo tanks. Timeless News spoke to one of the members of SADA Kholofelo Manaleng from Madibong ward 19 on the sidelines of the debate who emphasized the frustration of lack of water in their area, ” We have reservoirs and taps next to us which are always dry and that compel us to spend between R300 to R600 per month buying water from private water suppliers and that limits us from doing our laundry the normal way,at times we are forced to do half of our laundry load because we are trying to save water” said Manaleng.
Robert Maapea of National Communist Congress dismissed the claim that the district municipality has a solution of supplying water through digging of boreholes while waiting for a full roll out of water supply from Dehoop and other dams,” boreholes won’t be solution because in South Africa we have energy crisis, loadshedding sometimes last up to four hours, which means the pump stations will be affected by lack of electricity therefore boreholes won’t be a relief to our water crisis” quipped Maapea. Malekutu Sekhukhune who represented the Economic Freedom Fighters argued that the issue of water scarcity in Sekhukhune District is not only affecting ordinary residents but hospitals as well, ” in hospitals like St Ritas and Jane Furse we have evidence that personell at those institutions they drink preboiled water and now my question is what about those patients who are unable to access the kitchen to preboil the water before they can drink it? they run a risk of being infected by more diseases as a results of lack clean water” said Sekhukhune .
The debate reached the boiling point when Semang Masemola the regional chairperson of SANCO was booed by the audience for encouraging them to vote for ANC and he promised that he will persuade the ruling party to self-correct. ACDP advocated for rain harvesting and water recycling as a relief to the current water challenges.
The debate was concluded by ACTIONSA provincial secretary Kgoshi Letsiri Phaahla who persuaded the audience to detest corruption in every sphere of government and rejected the claim of water scarcity in the district ” We have more than four dams in the district which could quench our thirst if distributed accordingly however our challenge is that we have people leadership inpositions are not interested in supplying our communities with potable water but the line their own pockets” stated Kgoshi Phaahla.
