Borehole tender shame
2010-06-27 13:00
» Nearly one million Limpopo villagers are still thirsty.
» Villagers are still sharing dirty water with cows.
Scores of rural villagers in Limpopo are still experiencing a
water crisis nearly a year after the Mopani district municipality issued
multimillion-rand tenders for the supply of boreholes and maintenance of
pumps.
It is alleged that most of the 49 companies which shared contracts
worth R25 million between August and December last year did shoddy work,
supplied low-capacity machines and drilled boreholes in the wrong places.
The crisis, which dates back more than a year, is threatening more
than one million people in 325 villages across the region.
Official papers in City Press’s possession show that more than half
of the 100 tenders, ranging in value from R8 000 to R499 000, were issued to a
list of beneficiaries packed with local ANC cadres and activists.
The beneficiaries, including Desmond Mahasha, branch chairperson
Phetole Molapisane and Member of the Provincial Legislature Pharephare Mothupi,
got their share of the tenders less than a month before the Mopani regional
elective conference last September.
This has stirred up allegations that taxpayers’ money was used to
buy votes.
Mopani district municipality mayor Joshua Matlou, an ally of
Premier Cassel Mathale and ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, was
subsequently elevated to the party’s regional chairpersonship unopposed.
An ANC local leader who refused to be named said: “Those tenders
were for the conference. That is why that boy (Matlou) was elected
unopposed.”
Although the tenders were issued in response to Water and
Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica’s declaration of parts of the
region as disaster areas, and her subsequent pledge to immediately spend R75
million (to be increased to R250 million within three years), the intended
beneficiaries said the tenders had yet to make a difference in their
lives.
Matlou told City Press last year that he would spend R16 million on
repairing 4 000 boreholes before December.
In our visits to more than 20 villages across the Greater Letaba,
Greater Tzaneen and Giyani municipalities over the past four weeks, however, we
found that little had changed from what we saw 10 months ago.
Ga-Mamaila headman Kgosi Khuduwani Mamaila said: “The problem is
that they give each other tenders.
You will never get them unless you are an ANC
member, no matter how good you are.”
Limpopo water affairs director Alison Matukani confirmed that
Sonjica had raised R54 million and the Mopani district municipality had spent
R25 million on the problem.
Matlou referred all enquiries to MDM manager, Timothy Maake, who
said yesterday: “To our knowledge, all the villages where repairs were
undertaken do have water and we do not know anything contrary.
“The water challenge facing our municipality is not about the
operation and maintenance of boreholes, as this is one source of water, but the
lack of adequate water sources poses a challenge.”
Maake said unhappy communities must contact MDM via their ward
councillors.
He conceded that the tenders had not been advertised: “The
repairing of boreholes is categorised as maintenance and operation but not
capital.
As a result we opted to use the quotation approach as per required
policy.”
However, MDM advertised tenders for the supply of boreholes and
machines on June 18.
Maake promised to take steps against any contractor who failed to
deliver.
- City Press