The Waterval community's struggle to secure proper service delivery is far from over and, much to the frustration of the local people, the representatives from the various departments failed to attend a meeting last week to discuss the problems.

The councillors for the Waterval region, which falls under the auspices of the Makhado Municipality, convened a meeting on 29 November at 10:00, where they were to meet with delegates from the Department of Roads and Transport and the Vhembe District Municipality.

This followed after the three parties first met on 22 November, when it was agreed that during the next meeting the water affairs section and roads and transport would bring written reports with regard to their service delivery duties for the communities concerned.

As recorded in the previous meeting's minutes, the water affairs section was required to go back to assess the extent of dysfunctional boreholes in the 18 regions which fall under the Waterval region. They were also requested to provide the gathering of councillors with a comprehensive written report on what the office's move would be to see to it that residents eventually received water.

The fact that the manager for the water affairs satellite office in Waterval, Ms Leah Kgosana, didn't attend the meeting on 29 November dismayed the councillors present.

Waterval region's acting administrator for the Makhado Municipality, Mr SS Baloyi, confirmed during the meeting that Kgosana had been served with at least three invitation letters. She refused to accept them, saying that the invitation should have been addressed to her seniors in Vhembe. "Kgosana said she would still attend the meeting, even though she didn't accept the invitation letter," reported Baloyi during the meeting.

When contacted to explain her absence from the meeting, Kgosana ignored calls from theLimpopo Mirror. The spokesperson for the Vhembe District Municipality, Mr Matodzi Ralushai, said he was aware of the 29 November meeting and that a representative from his office was going to attend. "I contacted Ms Leah myself," he said. "She said she was in the meeting [of the 29nd of November]. That's the information she gave me today (30 November)."

Service delivery convener and the person who chaired the meeting Cllr Sipho Masuka said people like Leah were not fit to be in office because they thought they could lie and get away with it. "The community needs water more than anything else," Masuka said. "It takes some six years for a borehole machine to be fixed, and you tell me if there's sense to that. People buy a 20 litre drum of water, paying R2 and R3, from their neighbours. Most of these people cannot even afford a loaf of bread."

In the meantime, the service support manager for the department of Roads and Transport, Maureen Ramudzuli, agreed that her department would undertake to fix "main roads" which were left impaired by recent rains whilst the Waterval regional office for the Makhado Municipality would take full responsibility for ward roads. "I will submit a request for a second TLB grader to speed up the project," Ramudzuli said. "You must also remember that, in the previous meeting, the Waterval regional office had promised to request two trucks from the Makhado Municipality for assistance in the process of roads reparation, since there's a scarcity of trucks from our side."

The technical director at the Makhado Municipality, Mr T Ralulimi, was supposed to come to the meeting to answer to the issues of the requested trucks as well as the roads construction departments' programme in and around the Waterval region. Mr Ralulimi, however, only arrived at the venue at 14:19, long after the actual meeting was declared over. He refused to give any comments, saying that he did not speak to the media.