DJ Stacey, “Daai meisie van TikTok” (and from Kimberley) asks a very important question in her latest video.
She says whenever coming home to Kimberley, she first finds out what the water situation is, “ . . .want die water daar is amper altyd af of daar is ’n grand interruption”.
DJ Stacey then refers to a media article of Wednesday, 22 November, on the emergency water supply interruption in Kimberley, estimated to last a few days and stretching into the weekend.
Since she also had to go to Johannesburg, she googled the water situation there, and found: “Unplanned maintenance disrupts water supply in areas of Joburg.”
She continued googling and found the same type of news relating to several cities and towns all over the country; and after that referring to articles dated 2021 on repairs done in these places, she then asks, “Wat repair hulle al van 2021 af?”
Fact is, these “repairs” have been continuing for many years.
In December 2022, Dr R.P. Motsoeneng published a research study in Sabinet African Journals (journals.co.za), titled “Public Sanitation Challenges in South African Local Government”.
In this he concludes: “Poor governance, lack of administrative and technical capacity, poor financial management, poor coordination and accountability appear to be at the centre of addressing these problems within municipalities.”
Over 20 years, public infrastructure investment in South Africa has amounted to about R3 trillion, according to the National Treasury in 2019, “However, the quality, speed and efficiency of many infrastructure projects have not matched the level of investment.
“The high volume of water losses that occurs because of pipe bursts and leakages results in substantial revenue losses for municipalities, and this revenue loss could have been used to fund infrastructure maintenance.”
What the state of Kimberley’s water infrastructure will be in five years, after the allocated more than R2 billion from National Treasury has been spent – with one of the five years having nearly run out already – remains to be seen.
