Magareng municipality promises to restore water supply in Warrenton

The Magareng Local Municipality has given the residents of Warrenton, Northern Cape, assurance that they will restore their water supply next week, after being without water for four months.

The municipality has been battling to fix the infrastructure.

Members of Parliament visited the area on a fact-finding mission and were told that the damage to infrastructure, caused by the February floods, has been addressed.

The Mayor of the Magareng Municipality, Neo Mase says residents will have water in the next four to five days.

“I think part of town will be receiving water, what I just need to emphasise is that though the water is going to be distributed to our reservoirs, remember our reservoirs got almost four months without water, so meaning that even when the water is going to be distributed, the reservoir needs to be cleaned because it might have rust, the water might not be clean so the community must not try to drink or use water immediately.”

Resident Bettie Britz says the water tankers have not delivered water in the past seven days.

The 37-year-old, who lives with her 71-year-old partially blind mother, says the lack of a stable water supply, led to her elderly mom losing her shack when it caught alight and the fire could not be extinguished.

“My mother’s shack burnt, everything of mine I worked for nine years, everything I bought burnt down, I don’t know how to explain because the more I talk about it, my heart is getting sore. I lost a lot of things, My problem is if there was water this incident wouldn’t have happened.”

After many pleas by residents, MPs descended on the area to get to the bottom of the problem.
The group, led by the leader of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), Kenneth Meshoe, has pushed for the water crisis to be resolved urgently.

“The municipal manager has agreed to come with us to meet the members of the community and promised that in three to four days there should be water,” Meshoe says.