Municipality asks for assistance during water shortage

MARAPONG – Accelerated population growth has led to an increased demand for water in Marapong and this has led to problems in water supply in the area, the Lephalale Municipality acknowledged this week.
As a short to medium term solution to the problem normal water supply will start from 07:00 to 12:00 and from 16:00 to 18:00. The municipality advises residents to store enough water during these times.
As a long-term solution to address the problem, the municipality initiated a project to supplement Marapong water supply with a bulk water pipeline linking Zeeland Water Treatment Works which has enough capacity to supply both Marapong and Lephalale town. The designs for the projects are completed and have been presented to the Department of Water and Sanitation on 05 September 2016 to raise funds required to proceed with construction works of the pipeline and associated equipment. The project is aimed to supply water to Marapong, the heavy industrial area and Exxaro.
However, the municipality appealed to people residing in Marapong to pay for their municipal services regularly to ensure that the council can extend the provision of services to the area. “The culture of payment of services also needs to be inculcated to residents as a way to enable the municipality to render sustainable and effective delivery of services. Some of the indigent households consume more than the allocated volume of 6KL per month and any consumption above that is not being paid for. Therefore we appeal to residents to adhere to water conservation measures to save water as it is really a scarce resource. The community must reduce usage of water for gardening purposes and also use buckets to wash their cars etc,” reads a press release by the municipality.
In addition the municipality is supplying water with water tankers that refill elevated plastic tanks installed at the informal settlements.
This water is provided free by the Municipality to the community to ensure that people receive basic level of water supply services.