For over 40 days, the taps in large parts of Harrismith ran completely dry… until one man stood up for the entire community!
Harrismith, South Africa (18 January 2022) – Since July 2018, under 40% of the required water has been delivered to residents and businesses in Harrismith, leaving many community members with no water at all for over 40 days.
Harrismith does not have a total lack of water, enough water is available, but there is a lack of financial resources and capacity to effectively manage the water supply systems.
The causes of this disaster are the fact that the Wilge River water level is too low for pumping.
Maluti A Phofung Water (MaP Water) is unable to get enough water from the Nuwejaar Spruit pump station to the Wilge Water Treatment Plant because of the small bulk water pipelines, breaking pumps, bursting pipes and a lack of equipment and resources.
In addition to these problems, there have been two incidents of sabotage to electricity installations serving the pump stations.
“Our Municipality have failed us, they are utterly useless and only want our money for nothing in return. They have no interest in ensuring service delivery within Harrismith and Intabazwe. The excuses and arrogance that the community has had to face over the past few years have been utterly unacceptable and now Maluti-A-Phofung have collapsed owing billions to Eskom and other suppliers, and all they can do is pull up their shoulders and pass on the blame.” – Evelyn Duperron, a local resident in Harrismith posted on her Facebook.
Many farmers from the area have taken it upon themselves to supply water in tankers to nearby communities to help them survive the disaster.
“We have had random farmers, business owners and community members of Harrismith who drive out to the rural areas or in to town with a ton of water so that people may have water. Water JoJo’s have also been placed around town so people may freely collect water. All of this provided by the town people, businesses and farmers” Evelyn explains.
One of these incredible farmers has become a local hero on South Africa’s social media spaces.
Petrus Claassen van Eeden bought and installed a much-needed pump on Saturday, 19 January 2019, to supply water to the hundreds of community members without. The incredible farmer decided to help his neighbours in their time of need, using his own money and has now brought water back to over 80% of the community.
“With the one pump working at capacity, we are only getting 145l/s. I have bought a new pump and it will arrive tomorrow morning at Buildit in Harrismith. They have offered to deliver the pump to Nuwejaarspruit Pumphouse. Casper from Nesle yet again will install the new pump, they have prepared by removing the faulty pump today in anticipation of the new pump arriving tomorrow.
According to Engineering calculations we should increase delivery with 2 pumps from 145l/s to 222l/s. This should be a welcome relief for all of us. When Wilgerivier is not empty it can supply 250l/s so we will still theoretically be short 30l/s.”
The farmer and the community have fixed the problem by themselves, after waiting for over 5 months for the government, who “did nothing to help” and Petrus now believes that it is time for their community to form their own municipality.
“It is blatantly obvious that MaP is not able to service us as a community, and enough is enough, no more. No more excuses. We need to form our own Municipality. I am sure there is a peaceful way for MaP to move out of our Community, but we as concerned citizens of Harrismith Intabazwe will take to the streets if we need to.”
I believe that Harrismith, Intabazwe is done with asking and begging and suffering under the Mismanagement of MaP.”
Petrus says that the shifting of blame, shrugging of shoulders and total disregard for the responsibility and importance of service delivery, was sadly very evident in the meeting he had between Local Harrismith Intabazwe representativeness and MaP.
“MaP had no remorse for the fact that our community had a water crisis for the past 5 months. They did not understand that being without water is absolutely not acceptable. One of their excuses actually being: If Harrismith Intabazwe has a problem they have to drive an hour to come and assess and then even longer to attend to the problem.
This is absolutely ludicrous to be mismanaged by an organisation that is an hour away and no vested interest. As stated by one Representative, they go back to QwaQwa after not fixing a water problem and have a nice hot bath.
The point being, they don’t care if we don’t have water, they don’t even live here.”
Petrus has also formulated plans to ensure that the community do not run out of water in the future.
“The short term solution for the Harrismith Intabazwe water crisis is a Free-Flow line from Sterkfontein, past Tsiami, along the N5 all the way to Harrismith Sanitation Plant.
There is an existing discontinued pipe along this route and I assume there is an existing servitude already registered on that route. A large low pressure high volume pipe along this route will not only enable the Free-Economic Zone to get started, but most importantly solve a water problem for the people of Tsiami and Kalanyoni. The Sterkfontein water extraction point is 130m above Harrismith Sanitation Plant.
This pipeline would ensure a constant supply of perfectly clean water with no need for Electricity and risk of theft and vandalism to expensive pump house infrastructure.”
Petrus believes that the long term solution for the community will multiply their local economy by tenfold and consequently add employment opportunities to the people of Harrismith Intabazwe.
A solution that he believes will restore prosperity and a good life for all.
“The Long Term Plan that I have for our community is based on building wealth and prosperity for all. We build a dam in the Meul River about 25km van Harrismith in our own Municipality. We call it the Mandela Dam. The Mandela dam will supply water to our community and also make jobs and new opportunities available to all of us. The dam will use only 2.6% of the Vaal Dam Catchment and will enable our community to be water independent and irrigate 40 000ha.
This will increase total irrigation in South Africa by 15%.
The increase in productivity and production will benefit the whole community. Without bureaucracy and endless non productive meetings, it is possible to build the Mandela Dam in one winter.
The future of our Harrismith Intabazwe community is very bright. We have a problem, we have a solution.”
The Rapport originally reported on the story, which has since gone viral on social media, and photos of the farmers working together can be seen on their Instagram below.
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