While more than 190000 people in the Komani district are set to benefit from next month as a massive water project comes online, 800 households in Xonxa village, just a stone’s throw from the source of the supply, will have to wait a little longer.
The village sits just 500 metres from Xonxa Dam, the source of the R546-million bulk water supply project, and its residents have a clear view of the huge pipelines and pump station that will supply water to Komani while their water supply has been erratic for years.
Villagers currently share their water source, the nearby river, with cattle.
On rainy days they rush to put buckets out to catch rainwater. They have taps connected to a borehole water supply network but these ran dry some time ago and any attempts made to fix the network have not lasted.
Community leader Lubabalo Nojekwa said in November last year, after an article on their situation appeared in the Daily Dispatch, water had been restored but the joy only lasted a week.
“Since then the taps have been dry. The municipality admitted that the company hired to do the project to supply water to the village in 2013 did not do a good job. Three more contractors were employed to finish the job but none of them succeeded,” he said.
Nojekwa said now they have water transported to the village by the Chris Hani district municipality once in a while.
“That water lasts for less than an hour as people have no water. We have a dam right here in the village but we cannot drink from it. We want the municipality to supply us with the water from the dam,” he said.
“When we engage the municipality, they don’t appear to have a plan to bring water into the village anytime soon,” he said.
“There are no time-frames, there is no hope that there will be water provision for the villagers living closer to the dam,” he said, adding that when they asked why they had been left off the list of villages benefiting from the bulk water supply they were told “we don’t own the dam – it is under the department of water affairs”.
“If we had money, we would hire lawyers to force the municipality to give us water,” Nojekwa said, adding that the village used to get water from boreholes but now that supply had run dry.
“It is painful to see our water being transported to Komani while we don’t get a single drop,” he said.
Chris Hani District Municipality spokeswoman Thobeka Mqamelo said there was a plan to build a water treatment works for the village to ensure the community benefited from the Xonxa Dam.
“A pump station was constructed in the area to facilitate the drawing of water to the Komani water treatment works and there is a need for a water treatment works in order to supply the area with clean drinking water,” she said.
Mqamelo said the project was set to start in the 2018-19 financial year. “We are in advanced stages of the preliminary investigation facilitating the project, including finding the correct location for the treatment works and any possible associated environmental impacts,” she said.
The borehole constructed in the area was meant to be an interim arrangement, she added.
Long wait for water provision
The village sits just 500 metres from Xonxa Dam, the source of the R546-million bulk water supply project, and its residents have a clear view of the huge pipelines and pump station that will supply water to Komani while their water supply has been erratic for years.
Villagers currently share their water source, the nearby river, with cattle.
On rainy days they rush to put buckets out to catch rainwater. They have taps connected to a borehole water supply network but these ran dry some time ago and any attempts made to fix the network have not lasted.
Community leader Lubabalo Nojekwa said in November last year, after an article on their situation appeared in the Daily Dispatch, water had been restored but the joy only lasted a week.
“Since then the taps have been dry. The municipality admitted that the company hired to do the project to supply water to the village in 2013 did not do a good job. Three more contractors were employed to finish the job but none of them succeeded,” he said.
Nojekwa said now they have water transported to the village by the Chris Hani district municipality once in a while.
“That water lasts for less than an hour as people have no water. We have a dam right here in the village but we cannot drink from it. We want the municipality to supply us with the water from the dam,” he said.
“When we engage the municipality, they don’t appear to have a plan to bring water into the village anytime soon,” he said.
“There are no time-frames, there is no hope that there will be water provision for the villagers living closer to the dam,” he said, adding that when they asked why they had been left off the list of villages benefiting from the bulk water supply they were told “we don’t own the dam – it is under the department of water affairs”.
“If we had money, we would hire lawyers to force the municipality to give us water,” Nojekwa said, adding that the village used to get water from boreholes but now that supply had run dry.
“It is painful to see our water being transported to Komani while we don’t get a single drop,” he said.
Chris Hani District Municipality spokeswoman Thobeka Mqamelo said there was a plan to build a water treatment works for the village to ensure the community benefited from the Xonxa Dam.
“A pump station was constructed in the area to facilitate the drawing of water to the Komani water treatment works and there is a need for a water treatment works in order to supply the area with clean drinking water,” she said.
Mqamelo said the project was set to start in the 2018-19 financial year. “We are in advanced stages of the preliminary investigation facilitating the project, including finding the correct location for the treatment works and any possible associated environmental impacts,” she said.
The borehole constructed in the area was meant to be an interim arrangement, she added.
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