On 6 May 2021, during an oversight visit to the Ruth Mompati District Municipality, the Parliamentary Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) paid a visit to the Vryburg sewage plant after the FF Plus insisted on it.
The visit once again shone the spotlight on the terrible condition of local government under ANC rule.
It was found that unprocessed sewage still flows freely into the Harts River despite various requests for urgent intervention being lodged by residents in the past.
In June 2018, a formal complaint was lodged with the police against the former municipal manager of the Naledi Local Municipality, which serves Stella and Vryburg, for violations of the National Water Act. A High Court order, which was obtained in 2020 against the Municipality because of the pollution, is apparently also being ignored.
The detrimental effects of the pollution of the water and environment due to mismanagement are obvious.
What makes matters even worse is the fact that an amount of R120 million has already been spent to build a new sewage plant to stop the pollution.
During the oversight visit, the Committee found a recently constructed concrete structure in the dense vegetation just outside of town – it has reportedly not been touched in the past eighteen months and has started to erode.
It is just one more half-built tender project financed by taxpayers. It will probably take as many millions more to get the facility up and running.
Apart from the fact that the street and road networks in Vryburg and the surrounding areas are rapidly decaying, residents in the area are also frequently affected by water and power outages.
The quality of the tap water in the area is called into question on a regular basis due to the poor management and a lack of maintenance of water infrastructure and sewage plants.
The FF Plus will investigate the matter further and will put pressure on the national as well as provincial government to ensure that the problems are resolved and that the individuals responsible for the misappropriation and pollution of scarce resources will be held accountable.
Voters must stand up and stand together in the upcoming local government elections to ensure that mismanagement and corruption under ANC rule in local government are brought to an end.
Read the original article in Afrikaans by Michal Groenewald on FF Plus
