EMALAHLENI– Empumelelweni residents in eMalahleni cried that they needed more than water tanks supplied by government in their communities because of water scarcity.
Empumelelweni was one of the beneficiaries of 183 water tanks supplied by the Department of Water and Sanitation to different municipalities in Mpumalanga. The water tanks were part of the interventions by the department to enable reliable water supply to communities to ensure that residents comply with the regulations of the Covid-19 national lockdown.
“The department only provides the water tanks as an intervention to enable reliable water supply to communities. They are not aware that there are still a lot number of communities in Emalahleni struggling with water. The matter should be addressed by Emalahleni Local Municipality not the national department,” Water and Sanitation spokesperson, Sputnik Ratau, said.
Community member, Vusumuzi Mokoena, 54, said that the municipality should provide them with water taps instead of the water tanks. Disappointedly, Mokoena said, “Here Empumelelweni we suffer a lot because of water shortage. How can we be provided with tanks that have dirty water? We want the municipality to install us water taps because not all of us benefited from the water tanks supplied.”
Mokoena said that their mayor has been making unfulfilled promises from the past two years. “And we also have electricity problem here,” he roared.
Questions sent to the local municipal spokesperson, Lebogang Mofokeng, regarding the matter were not answered. Also attempts to get comment from the Executive Mayor, Linah Malatjie, were in vain.
