Steven Klukowski

Daniel Apollus, a pensioner residing in Klein Vaalgras, said it is challenging for him to collect water at a point far from his home due to his deteriorating health and lack of resources.

 “We used to receive clean drinking water from the pipeline connected to a solar water pump from the Department of Rural Water Supply. But now that it is broken, we are forced to make alternative arrangements, which are costly,’’ the pensioner told New Era.

The water crisis has been ongoing for more than two weeks in their community now.

Apollus is worried that the school hostels are also without water, and that residents now have to share the little they can collect with the hostel lodgers. 

“If it was not for the contractor busy here in our village providing us with water, I do not know what would have happened to us,’’ he added.

The senior citizen also bemoaned the fact that the government (Department of Rural Water Supply) does not maintain water infrastructure properly in the area as well as not providing them with water, which can be supplied with trucks. 

“We did, however, raise these concerns with our traditional leaders. But until now, there has been no positive, tangible feedback,’’ continued Apollus. 

He thus called on the political leadership of the area to engage Rural Water Supply to address their dilemma as a matter of urgency.

Approached for comment, Berseba constituency councillor Jeremias Goeieman (under which Vaalgras resorts) said he was never informed about the water access crisis. 

“The last time I visited the area, I found that residents were tampering with the water taps supplying them with water, resulting in others not being able
 to access it as a result,’’ he explained.  

Goeieman also informed this publication that he has approached Rural Water Supply, which claimed that it is rather the residents who are causing the challenge of access to water. 

He added that the department said residents are supplied with water from one central point from a pipeline to tanks installed in their houses. 

The politician noted that the broken solar water pump installed at Vaalgras will be repaired in due course, whilst the Department of Rural Water Supply will gave priority to the area when drilling new boreholes as a means to solve the crisis.