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Taps dry up in Standerton; AfriForum intervenes

The Standerton AfriForum branch appointed a contractor this week to repair a broken water pipe in Commercial Street‚ which had been causing water supply problems in the area for four weeks.

 “We repeatedly reported the problem to the municipal manager of the Lekwa Local Municipality‚ Linda Tshabalala‚ but never received a response‚” said Hillel Coetzer‚ chairman of the Standerton branch.

According to Coetzer the contractor merely took 30 minutes to repair the pipe.

AfriForum also served a letter of demand on the municipality on November 9‚ which informed them about the current water problems in Rooikoppen‚ Kosmos Park‚ Florapark and extension 6‚ 7 and 2 of Standerton.

AfriForum said it was of the opinion that shortage of drinking water in Standerton was due to poor maintenance and workmanship and requested that the municipality provide the organisation with an action plan by Wednesday on how they planned to rectify the situation.

 If the municipality failed to do so‚ AfriForum would approach the high court.

“Every person has the right of access to clean drinking water. The municipality’s no-care attitude clearly states that they have no interest in the constitutional rights of the community.

“It is the municipality’s responsibility to provide water via water trucks should there be a problem with water supply.

“If the municipality fails to do so‚ AfriForum will intervene and claim back the expenses from the municipality‚” said Hein Gonzales‚ provincial coordinator for AfriForum in Mpumalanga.

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