Vaal River and taxpayers now pay the price for municipal maladministration – AfriForum
The civil rights organisation AfriForum says that the R873 million that is needed to rescue the Vaal River from sewage pollution could have been prevented and that it will in all probability not offer a permanent solution. The defence force intervened in the Vaal River crisis at the end of 2018 and already spent millions on the river without even coming close in succeeding in solving the problem.
Dr Eugene Brink, Strategic Advisor for Community Affairs at AfriForum, says all this money and effort could have been prevented if the local municipalities in Emfuleni (Vanderbijlpark) and Ngwathe (Parys) were competent and simply performed their duties. “Now the defence force must intervene at great expense with taxpayers’ money to solve preventable sewage problems.
“Emfuleni was placed under administration last year and basically collapsed. For example, the municipality only removes the garbage at half of the households in the area on a weekly basis.”
Brink says the ANC and other levels of government must take responsibility for Emfuleni’s problems and the damage it caused to one of South Africa’s most prominent rivers. “AfriForum last year started to help arrange the situation by means of activism, the submission of criminal charges and the release of good bacteria to break down the sewage. We will continue to place pressure using various methods.”
“The Emfuleni Local Municipality was generally unwilling to offer any cooperation or to even accept our memorandum. Without the necessary liability and competency, millions of rands will continuously be thrown at the problem without any success. As soon as the defence force departs, the problems will simply resurface,” concludes Brink.
