Frustrated by years of water scarcity, residents of Ga-Makgoba village outside Lebowakgomo took their grievances to the Capricorn District Municipality offices on Tuesday, marching and submitting a memorandum of demands.
The community, which comprises over 2,500 households, is struggling with a complete lack of adequate water infrastructure. The existing borehole meant to serve the village is consistently broken, and aging pipes are no longer functional.
This failure of infrastructure has forced residents into a daily struggle for access to water. Many are required to walk long distances to nearby rivers to fetch water for drinking, cooking, and washing. Those who can afford it are forced to buy water from the few households in the area that have private boreholes.
A community representative outlined their core demands, stating, “Our demands are just simple… Basically, we just want water. We want new holes to be drilled and the tanks and the dams to be built so that there is a proper sustainability of water that is reliable.”
The impact of the water crisis on daily life is severe. One resident highlighted the effect on children’s education, explaining, “The lack of water in our village is affecting us very badly… children can’t even write homeworks when they come to school. They must go and push wheelbarrows to go and fetch water.”
The burden also falls heavily on the elderly and the unemployed. Another community member said, “We are unemployed and now we are required to buy water and if we don’t have money we walk a long distance to rivers to fetch water and wash laundry.” A parent expressed the difficulty of maintaining basic hygiene without a reliable water source, stating, “I have to wash the children’s uniform daily after school and I don’t even know how because we don’t have water.”
A municipal official acknowledged receipt of the memorandum and promised action. “The issues are raised on the memorandum and we feel… we will take our team there together with the executive mayor… to go and look at their problems and we will resolve them,” the official said.
With water being an essential need, the community of Ga-Makgoba has given the Capricorn District Municipality 24 hours to respond to their memorandum and provide a concrete solution to the ongoing crisis.
