Following a meeting of AfriForum with the municipal manager of Makhado Municipality, a tour on 15 October to visit the “hotspots” in Makhado (Louis Trichardt) nearly ended in total disarray.

The municipalities of Makhado and Vhembe were well represented, with Makhado headed up by Mr Isaac Mutshinyali (municipal manager), assisted by the technical director, Mr Thivho Ralulimi, and several technical staff. The Vhembe District Municipality’s (VDM) delegation comprised Mr Eric Masakona (VDM Water services manager), Mr Shelton Mulibana (VDM operation and maintenance: Makhado area) and others. AfriForum was represented by its local chairperson, Mr Wally Schultz, vice-chairperson Mr Herman Smith and Mr Lampie Schoeman. Mutshinyali had proficiently organised a big enough municipal vehicle to transport all while they could talk inside the vehicle and not necessarily have to stop at each and every hotspot.

At the first stop, some members of the delegation filed out of the bus to inspect a huge and dangerous open hole in Stubbs Street, near the local high school. The cordial atmosphere between the parties was short lived when differences of opinion surfaced on what Council should have done and should do concerning the open hole, which is posing a danger to the children and residents. The hole has since been closed at the order of the municipal manager.

Shortly after the incident in Stubbs Street, Schultz left the bus. “The Makhado delegation laughed uproariously. I demanded to know why all this was so funny and, seeing them respond with more hilarity, I declared this behaviour to be idiotic,” Schultz said.  He said that he had told the officials that “this was no laughing matter”, before he started to walk home.

Soon afterwards, Schoeman also got out of the bus. “It seemed to me that Ralulimi tried to provoke me to lose my temper. He should rather hang his head in shame that the town deteriorated to such an extent during the four-and-a-half years that he had been responsible for the technical department, instead of being provocative,” Schoeman said.

“The laughter continued. I told the municipal manager that this was not a joke, it was a disaster and that the tour should be stopped,” Smith said.

The tour was partly salvaged when Mutshinyali decided to drop off Ralulimi and other officials and continue the tour in Smith’s personal vehicle with himself, Masakona, Smith and Schoeman, who had walked to the municipality and had been picked up by Mutshinyali.

Mutshinyali interpreted the frenzy in the bus as the result of the AfriForum chairperson's calling his director idiotic. “I can’t have my officials fighting with people. I told Schultz that if he was thinking of leaving the bus, it would be better,” he said.

The next stop was at the telemetric flow meter in Ruh Street, which could make a difference in the water situation if only it were in operation. Mutshinyali said that the first priority was to get the security in order there and then plan how to get the system operational.

The rest of the tour included hotspots in the new extension, Eltivillas with its vanished tar roads, pump stations appearing very neat but pumping sewage into the veldt, the overflowing rubbish dump, sewage rivers near the railway, the existing sewage plant and a dam full of sewage near the town's boreholes.

“I know that the water situation is bad, with regard to the Albasini line to Mowcop reservoir, but thought the underground system was fine. I now realise that there are a lot of issues to be dealt with, such as excavating the lines connecting the pump stations with the reservoirs,” Masakona said.