The Rural and Farmworkers Development Organisation has slammed the Matzikama municipality for failing to act on the water crisis that has left Vredendal residents and farmers with no water for the past nine days.
This, after the municipality revealed that the water shortage was the result of the poor infrastructure.
Director of the Rural and Farmworkers Development Organisation, Billy Claasen, blamed poor municipal administration.
“This is a management problem or shall I say mistake of the Matzikama municipal administration and equally large overview mistake of the sleepy Matzikama council.
“It is a shame that something is only being done now. Here all the Council members have fulfilled their role to lead. They should all be fired,” he said.
Acting Matzikama municipal manager, Lionel Phillips, said the municipality was “fully committed” to fixing the situation as soon as possible.
“We worked right through the night to pump water into the system, with endless problems that kept us from filling the water networks.
“Our teams are working tirelessly to identify and repair the infrastructure issues caused by this outage.
“We understand the severity of the situation and spare no effort to restore the water supply to its normal state.
“In the meantime, we are arranging alternative water supply options to ease the immediate burden on our residents.
“Once again, I apologise for the inconvenience and assure you that we are fully committed to resolving this situation quickly,” he said.
Cape Times