Statement by Chantel King MPL – DA Enoch Mgijima Constituency Leader:
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will be escalating the failure of the Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM) to address the water crisis in the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality to the National Parliament.
The CHDM is the water authority to the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality. The district municipality’s failure to deliver water services yet again lays bare the failure of the District Development Model (DDM) in practice.
Nowhere is this failure more evident than at the Xonxa Dam pump station. Despite more than R657.7 million having been spent on this project by 2024, only one pump is currently operational, and it is not pumping sufficient water to meet community needs.
Residents across Enoch Mgijima endure daily water outages, with areas such as Hofmeyr, Tarkastad, Whittlesea, Ezibeleni, Mlungisi and Newrest greatly affected. Households, schools, hospitals and businesses are forced to operate under crisis conditions. While water trucks are meant to provide relief, they do not adhere to delivery schedules, leaving entire areas without water for prolonged periods.
A key driver of this crisis is the poor coordination and communication between the CHDM and the local municipality. The two mayors are clearly not speaking from the same page, resulting in fragmented decision-making and implementation breakdowns. The DDM was sold as a model to improve integration and cooperation, but instead it has entrenched confusion and buck-passing.
I have written to DA National Spokesperson on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Marina van Zyl, to address the DDM’s failure to effectively deal with the water crisis in Enoch Mgijima in the CoGTA Parliamentary Portfolio Committee.
The CHDM requires R1.65 billion to replace water infrastructure in Enoch Mgijima. The district municipality has reportedly requested financial assistance from Eastern Cape CoGTA and Provincial Treasury to address the financial shortfall. Yet there has been no transparent communication with residents about the nature of the request, the financial position of the district or how this support will translate into improved water provision.
At the same time residents are subjected to punitive billing measures, despite unreliable and inconsistent water supply. The DA maintains that fixing and stabilising the billing system must be a priority. Residents cannot be punished for municipal failures.
The people of Enoch Mgijima deserve reliable water supply, honest leadership, and accountable government. The DA will continue to fight for the rights and dignity of all residents.
Santas Little Helper
A British man on safari walks into a bar far out in the reaches of a game reserve in Southern Africa, he stays at the bar for a while shooting the shit with the bartender and drinking like a fish, he offer to buy the barkeep a round and since no one else is within 2km of their small oasis of liquor the barkeep obliges. The englishman goes off to the bathroom to have a good old go at the porcelain, he\’s back and ready for a few more whiskeys. He\’s just sat down when suddenly in the distance he hears a scream. He looks over his shoulder and dismisses it as nothing, he turns to the barkeep and orders a drink, takes a sip and hears the scream again. He looks at the barkeep who just shrugs it off. A minute or two later he and the barman hear it again and go outside to take a look. They see a lone figure running towards them screaming, he spots them and lets out a cry, RUN!!!!! HE\”S COMING!!!!!
The barkeep and the Englishman both look at the terrified bedraggled sight before them, and try to calm him down, but he\’s completely inconsolable. They give him water and finally manage to get a word out of him but he struggles free from their grasp and run away screaming.
A few minutes later the same thing happens with a whole group of men running in and screaming, he\’s coming, he\’s coming the barkeep grabs hold of one of the men as he tries to sprint past the bar and tries to get information out of him, again no response other than terrified gibberish.
The barkeep and his customer are starting to get worried, they start to pack up before another group of horrified natives run up to the bar most of them flee but one tries to hide behind the bar, the barkeep pulls out a shotgun and points it at the terrified man\’s face, finally managing to coax some words out of him. \”He\’s coming for us, Vernon Koekemoer is coming for us, we have to hide!!! We have to get out of here.\” He gets up and tries to run but the barkeep grabs him, feeling trapped in a panic he grabs the barkeeps shotgun and blows his own head off. The Englishman and the barkeep look at each other starting to really panic now.
They look out of the window and off in the distance they see a tornado coming towards the bar, at the bottom of the tornado they see the hugest beast of a man they have ever seen, as he gets closer they spot that he is riding a rhinocerous and using a crocodile as a riding whip, with each smack of the crocodile across the back of the rhino the louder is screams and the faster it runs, the tornado following it getting ever larger.
The 2 look at each other and start to fortify their position, they\’ve got a gun and they\’re waaay to drunk to run, so they start piling bar stool and tables and anything they can get their hands on to make sure they\’ll be safe when he arrives. They\’re not gonna make it, they can see the man slowing down his rhino, by now the crocodile is nothing but reptile paste on the bruised rump of the half dead rhino, the rhino drops down dead from exhaustion and crashes to the ground right outside the bar the tornado loses it\’s last breath in a cloud of dust as the huge man crashes his way through the make shift barricade and charges up towards the bar where the 2 men have taken shelter, he grabs a bottle of the hardest liquor on the shelf and down the entire litre in 1 gulp, he peers over the bar sobbing and sees the 2 defenders cowering down behind the crates of beer, they look up at the mans\’ face and he stares at them with a look of complete and utter hopelessness, he stares at them for a half second and half screams, half sobs, \”Oh my god what are you still doing here!!! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!!! Vernon Koekemoer is coming!!!!\”
Virgo Moon
Fun South African Fact: South Africa is the largest producer of platinum in the world.