‘VARKSTAD’ – In a city where potholes throw birthday parties and become old enough to register to vote, and in a ‘schitty’ where residents play hide-and-seek with the municipal water supply, Kimberley’s ongoing water crisis has become the recurring soap opera Kimberlites never asked for. Like clockwork, the rough diamond of a city experiences water interruptions, nightly, daily, weekly, monthly, and annually, leaving residents high and dry.
This year’s installment features a special festive emergency water shutdown, courtesy of the Sol Plaatje Municipality. It’s a blockbuster leaky thriller with major leaks discovered in a pipeline installed in the 1940s – a time when water probably still thought it was too cool to be in pipes, and the only pipes around were tobacco pipes.
Residents, who’ve become connoisseurs of excuses, are breaking free from Political Stockholm Syndrome. They’re not buying the blame game on old pipes; they’re demanding answers. The city’s maladministration and mismanagement of critical infrastructure are under the spotlight, and the other political parties are nowhere to be found, possibly holding their breath during the recurring intermittent water interruptions.
As the Sol Plaatje Municipality scrambles to fix leaks and promises a whopping R104 million in the BFI grant for future efforts, residents are left in shock – both from the short notice and the realization that their water supply has become a daily guessing game. Rumour has it that the city’s pipes are the real escape artists, vanishing whenever it’s time for maintenance.
Meanwhile, a concerned resident, after an unsuccessful pipeline cycling expedition, couldn’t easily find any major leaks that would warrant such drastic short-notice emergency water interruptions, leaving residents with more questions that would normally not need to be asked.
In the grand water symphony of Kimberley, where pipes are underground and potholes are aboveground, the only certainty is that Kimberely’s water interruptions are set to make a splash at the polls in the 2024 general elections. Will Kimberley’s water crisis become a political tidal wave?
Read more on The Kimberley Prospector.