Thirsty Molepolole Residents Rise
Pini Bothoko | Monday January 15, 2018 17:32
The youth of the most populated village took their frustrations to the public this past week, forming a WhatsApp groups and Facebook page.
The campaign against the crisis dubbed, ‘Give us water campaign Molepolole’.
The movement then went to the ground. On Saturday, the villagers held a public meeting to discuss the perennial water shortage in their village.
During the gathering, the villagers stated that their cries for help have over the years fallen on deaf ears, something that has forced them to find new ways of tackling the matter. They revealed for decades now the government has denied them a basic need, water, and appeared that the problem could not be resolved in the near future.
Molepolole has over the years grown so rapidly to be the largest village in the country with majority of the residents commuting to and from the village to work at Gaborone daily. With no perennial rivers in the area the village is faced with acute shortage of water.
Moreover, the little they have, the residents complain that they have to compete with livestock and wild animals thus putting their health at risk of contacting waterborne diseases.
Aupa Koosaletse, spearheading the campaign stated that acute shortage of water has been the village’s crisis for years, and that it can no longer be tolerated. He called on residents to stand up collectively to voice out their concerns and to demand immediate answers from the government, as the crisis remains an elephant in the room.
“We are faced with a crisis and we know the situation much better, let us come up with ways to resolve the trouble. We are not here to cause any riots we want the country’s leadership to hear our appeal. As residents of this village, we wish to develop it but we cannot achieve our goals without water being one of the basic needs. Our social lives do not differ with the lives of people at the lands and cattle posts because we struggle without water even though we have standpipes in our yards,” Koosaletse said.
Others noted that the acute water shortage in the village is decades old, but gotten worse after Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) took over water services from Department of Water Affairs.
They suggested the need for WUC to consider engaging in a vigorous strategy that will ensure that the whole country’s water reaches all the consumers because acute shortage of water is a national crisis.
The gathering stated that due to the ever-growing population there is need for additional reservoirs in their village as well as extension of pipelines.
Gaolatlhe Mosaka, resident of Boswelakoko ward said they have been supplied with a water tank (Jojo) in their area, but it is overwhelmed and does not cater for the whole area. She said this is forcing them to walk long distances pushing wheelbarrows looking for water.
She said another concern is that some residents at the recently allocated plots have been told they are not in the map or planning area, hence cannot be connected standpipes. Gabriel Mokoka of Phalane ward said the situation is bad and worse for people without vehicles as at times one has to drive to far-off villages as Thamaga in search of water.
He said some people have found business in the crisis, as they are now selling 20 litre buckets of water for P30 to residents. The meeting elected a committee that can represent the villagers and spearhead their campaign to voice out their concerns to the government and WUC.