Kumakwane chokes under water shortage

MARANYANE NGWANAAMOTHO
Staff Writer | Friday September 17, 2010 00:00

 Motlogelwa promised to act swiftly and address the problem after villagers had claimed to suffer water scarcity in a period of over a month.  He says that water engineers are working together with Water Utilities officials to find a way of providing water to Kumakwane without relying on the Gabane reservoir, which is the case at the moment.  Currently, the council buys water for Kumakwane from Water Utilities.  'But the Gabane reservoir has to be filled for Kumakwane to get water.  If Gabane does not receive enough water then Kumakwane will definitely be affected,' Motlogelwa explained.

Motlogelwa says that consequently Kumakwane has been without water due to low water pressure at the Gabane reservoir.  'Our engineers have been investigating the problem and they have found that there is low water pressure and hence shortage of water in Kumakwane,' Motlogelwa said.  However, even though the village does not get enough water, part of the village gets some.  'It is not true that there has been no water at all.  What happens is that water flows only to one side of the village,' he said.

Meanwhile, despite Motlogelwa's report that the village has been without water for only three weeks, Kumakwane councillor, Winnie Cassim, says that it has been over a month now that residents had to choose to drink from a dam or go through the day without water. 

She says that the village has experienced drought for over a month now, emphasising that it was not the first time the village went without water.

'What we hear is that there has been a breakdown of the water pipes from Gabane reservoir where we get water,' she said.  The village is reported to occasionally experience shortage of water from as far as about five years back.

Shortage of water is an inconvenience for everyone, and Kumakwane can attest to that.  Cassim says that some council projects and some normal activities in the village have been halted and will only resume when they get water again.  'Schools close earlier for the day as students can not cope without water.  We have projects like the storm water drainage system that we are building.  Now we can not continue until we have water back,' Cassim says.

The irony with this village is that Kumakwane has streams of water that flow all year round, for example the Ditlhakane River that carries water from the hills outside the village.  'We have to build a storm water drainage system to control water that flows through the village and the hills.  The situation gets worse during rainy times,' says Cassim.