Repeated vandalism of water pumps leaves community high and dry
Vandals leave community taps dry.
Vandals have again targeted a multi-million rand borehole project leaving Vulindlela residents without water.
Now, as residents feel let down by the Msunduzi Municipality for not having prevented the vandalism, Deputy Mayor Mxolisi Mkhize, who suspects sabotage, is pleading with the community to protect the infrastructure that serves them.
Mbhasobhi Mncwabe said that the community had been told after the boreholes were installed last year, that they would be functioning soon afterwards.
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“A transformer was vandalised and cables were stolen. It was vandalised even before it started to pump water. It is the second time such a thing happens because of the municipal workers’ negligence,” he charged.
They were supposed to put measures in place to ensure that it is not vandalised. This is a huge setback for us as a community. We had high hopes that water outages will be a thing of the past, but until today no one has come back to give us feedback. We depend on water tankers to supply us with water.
Mkhize said it had been one of the municipality’s success stories having been delivered on time, within three months.
“The project yielded positive results, but some in the community set us back by vandalising it,” said Mkhize.
“Two boreholes were drilled in the Khokhwane area in Elandskop. We have gone three times into that area to fix cabling in terms of the power supply. We drilled, installed the pump but within two days it was vandalised and it stopped pumping water,” he said.
Mkhize added that the municipality then wondered whether the community was not aware that the project was for their benefit.
“We went and had an engagement with them, pleading with them to protect this infrastructure. Within two weeks after we installed new cables and systems, it was vandalised again. We don’t know whether there’s a deliberate sabotage in terms of vandalism.”
Mkhize went on to say that the municipality drilled two boreholes, so that there could be continual pumping of water for 24 hours.
When one rests, the other one kicks in and pumps. Residents were not going to suffer. Now, the community that raised me is suffering because of individuals who don’t want to see progress. My question is — where is the community when someone comes and destroy the infrastructure?
Mkhize said the two boreholes were meant to supply water to reservoir 10 and reservoir 10A.
Once full, they would feed wards seven, eight and 39, and a portion of ward six, near Taylors Halt.
“They would not have experienced challenges had these boreholes not been vandalised,” said the deputy mayor.
“But we shall not give up as our community needs to be supplied with water. The infrastructure gets installed by the municipality, but it belongs to the community. All we want is to provide water to the residents of Vulindlela while we are busy upgrading the scheme.”
He said that in ward five, solar panels had been stolen.
Mkhize said there were three ways the community was to be provided with water: boreholes, water tankers and through the spring protection programme.
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The latter aims to revive springs.
“We also drilled a borehole at Incwadi,” said Mkhize.
Before we launched it, I personally went there. Maybe someone came with an axe and destroyed the entire system. On top of that, they stole a transformer.
“One can see that these boreholes have not yielded positive results, but the community failed to protect its own infrastructure. The only boreholes that are not functional are the ones that have been destroyed by the community,” he added.
