Statement by Marina van Zyl MP – DA New Horizon Constituency Leader:
Residents of Ward 5 in Thembisa, Burgersdorp, have been without running water for more than seven consecutive days, despite water provision being a core municipal responsibility and a constitutional right. For families in this community, the consequences are severe and degrading.
Water tankers are wholly inadequate. They do not arrive daily and do not provide near enough water to meet basic household needs.
Elderly residents and children are forced to walk long distances in extreme December heat, carrying heavy buckets in the hope of collecting as little as five litres of water. At communal water points, desperation quickly turns into conflict as supplies run out. Many households cannot afford bottled water, leaving them with no safe alternative at all during peak summer temperatures.
The Democratic Alliance is deeply concerned that communities like Thembisa continue to suffer prolonged service delivery failures while municipal leadership fails to execute the most basic of functions. The result is a crisis that has become routine and normalised, and calls for remedial action is ignored.
The Joe Gqabi District Municipality is responsible for water provision, yet outages in Thembisa are frequent and often go unresolved. This points to serious failures in infrastructure maintenance and contingency planning. Emergency measures such as water tankers are clearly insufficient and cannot be turned into an ongoing substitute for a functioning water system.
I have written to the Municipal Manager demanding an urgent explanation for why residents of Thembisa are repeatedly left without water, and insisting on a permanent and reliable solution. At an absolute minimum, water must be restored to household taps on a predictable schedule, no less than every second day, while long-term infrastructure failures are addressed.
Access to water is fundamental to human dignity and health. No community should be expected to endure prolonged outages, especially over the Christmas period, when families should be focused on rest and care rather than survival.
The Democratic Alliance will continue to hold those responsible accountable until residents of Thembisa receive the reliable water supply they deserve. The people of the Eastern Cape deserve leadership that delivers basic services consistently and competently.
THRESHmSTR
Fun South African Fact: Some of the earliest evidence of human evolution has been unearthed at fossil sites northwest of Johannesburg in the Sterkfontein Caves! Archaeologists have discovered human remains here, some of which are more than 2 million years old! These discoveries have earned the area the title of “the Cradle of Humankind” which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
MeeP
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”