30 Oct 2023

The Serowe District leadershp should educate and create awareness on residents about consequences of vandalising the water reticulation system, the General Manager for the Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) in Serowe, Ms Dothodzo Chalashika, said.

Speaking during an annual stakeholder engagement forum in the village last week, Ms Chalashika said  vandalism of the water reticulation system hindered the corporation’s mandate of providing potable water efficiently as they end up revisiting the same areas to attend to leakages which were done deliberately.

Ms Chalashika said the residents,  especially those in areas where there is scarcity of water supply, break pipes intentionally for household use and watering their livestock.

She explained that this habit slows down progress on service delivery and is costly as there was about 45 per cent of lost water due to leakages.

She also explained that they are faced with challenges of old reticulation infrastructure which they adopted from Water Affairs Department when they took over some years back.

She said her corporation was faced with challenges of long water connection waiting because of self-trenching, inaccurate or out-dated consumer records, high water consumption queries, apathy in ownership, unauthorized water use such as moving into property without finalising agreements, livestock watering in private homes and public infrastructure and limited access to property to record water use.

Mitigations were done to try to curb the situation by encouraging customers to report water leakages and vandalism of infrastructure as early as possible but their words fell on deaf ears.

She said they also encourage self-trenching so that they can dedicate resources rotationally, encourage customers to be Know Your Customer (KYC) compliant for easy record keeping and tracing of meters, formalisation of house vacation and occupation by landlords, installation of prepaid metering stand pipes, submission of metre readings by customers especially those where their properties are inaccessible.

Ms Chalashika said messages are shared with the public through annual leadership forums with service centres.

She said invitations are sent to the leadership to appraise on water situation and to get their views on the development of the water industry.

She said WUC holds kgotla meetings with water users to inform customers on water issues and get feedback for improvement. The corporation also conducts campaigns to educate water users about its products and services.

“The campaigns are found in billboards, radio stations, newspapers and social media, she said” Mr Tlogelang Lesole, the maintenance engineer, explained that WUC is also mandated to manage waste water and sanitation services; they collect and convey wastewater from customers to the treatment plant/ponds, treat wastewater, and protect the environment including limited water resources against pollution.

Mr Lesole explained that they too have their fair share of challenges such as too much silt in the system, low manholes, disposing of unacceptable things into the system by the public, damaged manholes by users especially those along the roadsides, opening of manholes and blocked pipes by the public to water livestock, power and equipment failures causing overflows and private vacuum tankers disposing into the manholes.

He encouraged Serowe residents to know and understand wastewater.

He said water needs to flow without hindrance by solids or any other material. He explained that wastewater system is meant for wastewater and fluids not solids.

He urged the leaders to avoid to throw things which are supposed to be thrown into dustbins into the wastewater system such as toilets, manholes and many more.

Mr Lesole said some of the things they find in manholes are rabbles, condoms, pampers and others.

The Deputy Kgosi of Ga-Mmangwato, Kgosi Serogola Seretse, commended WUC for the good service they render to the public. He said the leadership and stakeholder whatsApp groups created are of great assistance and they enable easy communication and reporting to issues in the area.

He said since then there had been an improvement to leakage tackling and other challenges.

Kgosi Seretse said he was grateful to the corporation for being actively involved in social responsibilities as well as doing everything in their power to spread water saving messages across the area of Ga-Mmangwato.

He also expressed delight for their visibility on social media, radios and newspapers.

Kgosi Seretse urged the public to exercise water management and conservation skills given that water is a source of life not only to human beings but to all living creatures. ENDS