Molepolole residents tired of voting while thirsty
Innocent Selatlhwa | Friday September 27, 2019 12:20
Besides water shortage and bad roads, villagers decry lack of sewerage system, storm water drainage system, land shortage, unemployment, poor health facilities as well as soaring crime.
With the water situation having persisted for decades, some villagers say they have decided to abstain from voting. Residents of Molepolole have been experiencing occasional dry spells for as far back as three decades.
According to some residents the situation is dire such that the Water Utilities Corporation has resorted to bowsing while others drinking water they buy from boreholes. Some of residents have also resorted to abstaining from casting their votes in protest for poor service provision by authorities.
What worries residents is that funds have been diverted to other areas like the money, which was supposed to build new police station. Therefore they are shocked that the completion of the Metsimotlhabe/Kanye NSC11 pipeline via Thamaga as it does not challenges facing Molepolole.
When Mmegi team arrived at Mmanoko village on Monday, the first person they met was an elderly woman pushing a wheelbarrow with two 20 litres containers. “Ke ya go reka metsi ko sedibeng. Ke jone botshelo ja rona e sale ba tswala standpipe sa rona nvogola. Mo dijarateng dipompo ke mekgabisa hela”, Olebogeng Kharakhana said.
Kharakhana also said she buys water from one of the residents who has his own borehole and 20 litres cost P5.00.
She continued; “I don’t see the importance of voting because politicians are just taking advantage of us using this problem.
We voted for BDP for many years but nothing has changed. The reason why we had voted Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) is because we wanted them to do something about the issue, but nothing has changed again .”
Another constituent, this time in Molepolole Kemoneilwe Oganne said; “our roads are bad, especially internal ones because they are not paved. There is only one major road for central government, which is always congested. Another issue is shortage of police officers. Our police station is very small and it does not have enough resources to cover the whole village.”
Oganne said most clinics have serious shortages of medications and the situation is getting worse each month since patients end up buying medications from the pharmacies.
According to some elderly women the team met, they tried to change from BDP by voting in the UDC with the hope that things would change. They have since decided that they want to vote the BDP with hope that President Mokgweetsi Masisi would do something.
“Maybe it is because they were not in power, but we really need water, we need plots and better jobs for our children. Right now most of them work for Ipelegeng,” one of the women said.
For Comet Totolo they have now concluded that politicking is just a hobby and not about improving their lives. “I think a lot of people will not cast their votes because their votes are not producing results. We have changed parties in both constituencies and nothing has changed. To me it is just like they will continue to do the same for us to employ them while our lives remain stagnant.”