Water resources must be properly managed

The Vhembe District Municipality celebrated Mandela Day in style by engaging in a policy dialogue on community-driven, multiple use of water and rural livelihoods.

The dialogue, which also involved the Department of Water and Sanitation, Water Research Commission and the community of Tshakhuma, had the theme of Alternative model for Designing and Supporting Appropriate Rural Water Supply. The event was held at the Apostolic Faith Mission Church in Tshakhuma last Tuesday.

The executive mayor, Cllr Dowelani Nenguda, conceded that an increase in municipal water service delivery backlogs and the implementation of single-use water services had led to an uncoordinated self-supply scheme, which impacted effective management of water resources.

“Where there are challenges of services like here in Tshakhuma, the community did not sit back and wait for the government or the municipality to deliver services. Out of their own initiatives, they organized themselves and started water-supply schemes, funding them out of their pockets to purchase the required infrastructure and volunteered their own time and labour during construction and maintained services to ensure sustainability over the long term,” said Nenguda.

He said that it was important that the municipality plan water-service delivery with multiple users in mind and, where they had been unable to deliver services and the community had started self-supply schemes, they should offer either technical or any support to the community with the aim of ensuring that there was proper management of water resources.

The Tshakhuma project came as a result of the National Development Plan, which recommends supporting self-supply.

In response to these policies, the Water Research Commission initiated an action research project, Operation Community-driven Multiple Use Water Services in South Africa, with funding from the African Development Bank’s African Water Facility, focusing on Limpopo.

The motive was to demonstrate community-led planning, construction, operation and maintenance of water infrastructure for multiple uses, led by Tsogang Water and Sanitation, a non-governmental organization in Limpopo with more than 20 years of experience in community-led water development.

The other idea was to upscale lessons learnt by supporting the development of downstream investments by all project partners through district, provincial and national learning alliances. The intended outcomes of the project are to optimize water resources development and management for improved service delivery, improved water-use planning and management and increased investments in improved community water-service delivery.

Tshakhuma is one of the six villages that have been selected as a pilot project in the province. More than 2 500 household in Tshakhuma are benefiting from this project, which draws water from local streams. Community members were involved in the connection of pipes from the stream to their homes. Some were also trained on how to purify water before it reaches their homes.

Nenguda said he was happy that the project had eased the municipality’s burden of delivering water to each household in Tshakhuma. He urged other communities to emulate this.

News - Date: 04 August 2019

Ndivhuwo Musetha

Email: