The mayor of the oldest municipality in the country‚ Beaufort West‚ is in the dark about when his town will run out of water.
But “day zero”‚ when the municipality runs dry‚ may be fast approaching.
For almost a month‚ the Gamka Dam‚ which supplies water to the municipality‚ has been dry‚ and the town has been operating on borehole water and purified water from its waste-water plant.
Mayor Jacob Jeffrey van der Linde is also in the dark about when his town might be forced to implement water shedding. “At this stage‚ we don’t know how long the boreholes will have water available.”
He was speaking to TimesLIVE following news that “day zero” was imminent‚ and amid rumours that water cuts had already begun.
However‚ Van der Linde disputed that the municipality was implementing water cuts.
“We are at this stage coping‚ but we can run out of water any day now… because we are dependent on boreholes only‚” he said.
He said the municipality needed R23-million to connect five boreholes‚ which are about 5km from Beaufort West‚ to the town's water supply.
“We are monitoring the holes every day‚ so at this stage we plan to put up tanks‚ but we haven’t got to the stage where we turn [off water to] sections of the town for 10 to 12 hours. We haven’t reached that stage.”
Van der Linde said the plan was to start water cuts as soon as the first borehole in the town ran dry.
They had informed the provincial and national governments of their needs.
ANC chief whip in the Beaufort West‚ Mcebisi Kilani‚ has slammed the municipality‚ saying it has kept the council in the dark about plans to keep the water running.
“There is an ad hoc committee on drought‚ but there has been no report [to council]. They have not gotten back to us … they don’t have a plan in place to address the water crisis‚” said Kilani.
He said the municipality was also supposed to update the council on its expenditure on boreholes.
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