There’s no water,” my mother said as I arrived home from Johannesburg. “We haven’t had any for the past two weeks.” These words have become common in my conversations with my parents; we greet one another and then there’s an update about the water situation. This has been our lives for more than a decade, dating back to when I was a teenager still living at home.
When we’re not living without water, we’re forced to buy bottled water because when there is water it’s either dirty or too salty to drink. Ready-to-drink purification water shops are some of the most lucrative businesses in our neighbourhood — only those with no money to spare drink the tap water. The cost of clean and safe water is high and unattainable for many. My parents recently inquired about getting borehole water — they were quoted R35,000.
It’s not just Moruleng and surrounding villages that suffer weeks without water. The ironically named Promised Land informal settlement just outside Kuruman in the Northern Cape has never had access to running water. Residents get water from JoJo tanks that the Ga-Segonyana Local Municipality provides.
Just as in Moruleng, Promised Land residents have resorted to buying their own JoJo tanks and even buying water from suppliers such as Loeto Loeto, who fills up people’s tanks for a fee.Sometimes I have no choice but to give the people water on credit and some, they don’t pay me,” he said. “It’s difficult to say no to a person who is in need of water.”
The provincial water supplier, Bloemwater, brought a water storage tank meant to be filled every week, but Majela says they come after five weeks unless residents call.
Most probably there where anc is in charge. 5 years from now anc will again hand out t-shirts & magic food parcels that last 5 years and the people will again vote anc despite there being no water & basic service delivery while anc bigwigs & connected friends live in opulence
pontsho_pilane excellent article It's sad to see our people continuing to vote ANC into power after so many years of suffering. Maybe according to ANC, Cape Town is the only water scarce area not Moruleng ANC continue to fail rural areas Us voters we're failing ourselves
25 years of Anc. Yoh. They bribe voters with t shirts
Seriously ? 🙄 Of course they will. In fact now that they've voted they will receive even less attention from the cANCer.
Yes if they continue to be run by useless crooked ANC cadres
Yes, it seems like the villages and townships in Mpumalanga enjoy being without water as well. They also keep voting for them. 🙄
Yes, people voted for the status quo to continue
trixasis2 yes - anc is not into service delivery - in 25 years it went down the drain
ermbates That’s result of voting for ANC those ppl don’t take us serious I think if we voted against them they would have learnt something but there is nothing which will challenge our ppl will continue without water 💧 & roads n services we will never c them....
Yes
mckaytracey Thought that was Flint, Michigan