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The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape is calling on the MEC for COGHSTA, Bentley Vass to urgently intervene in the management of water infrastructure in Kareeberg Local Municipality. This comes after water restrictions were instituted in Carnarvon.

Information received revealed that the boreholes providing water were not well managed together with the fact that a critical transformer broke down without a backup. The recent tender that was awarded for the installation of a water pipeline to Van Wyksvlei is also being questioned. The pipeline to Van Wyksvlei will be using the same water source as the current struggling town of Carnarvon. Infrastructure meant to distribute water to the various communities is not properly planned and maintained and is in fact the main reason why the communities in Carnarvon and Van Wyksvlei don’t enjoy running water flowing from their taps.

The DA has, on numerous occasions raised the water shortages and management challenges in Kareeberg with MEC Vass but we have yet to receive any feedback on all correspondence sent to his office.

We will, this week, probe the issue on the maintenance of the infrastructure in Kareeberg municipality, in portfolio committee meetings to ensure that we receive a response on matters that the department tends to ignore.

We especially want to know how the water infrastructure is managed within this municipality and how it is possible for a tender to be awarded to install a pipeline, when the available water boreholes present capacity challenges. We can only wonder whether the Kareeberg IRS Bulk Water Report is still relevant under the current drought and climatic circumstances? We also want to know why the municipality chose to impose such strenuous water restrictions on Carnarvon instead of gradually easing the community into the water restrictions. This is a clear indication that there is no monitoring of water levels or borehole water levels within this municipality. It appears that the municipality and other departments do not interact with each other or the community to make use of available and closer water sources.

We cannot allow rural and remote towns to have to endure a waterless festive season because of municipal incompetence and the inability of COGHSTA to hold municipalities accountable.

Issued by The DA