On Monday this week, workers started clearing vegetation on the Levubu road with pangas. To the uninformed eye it would seem insignificant, but in reality this represents a major breakthrough for AfriForum and the Vhembe District Municipality in the vital struggle to have a consistent water supply restored to Makhado (Louis Trichardt).

Vhembe was facing possible contempt-of-court action for missing its deadlines, inter alia of denuding the route of the Albasini pipeline, so that the line can be monitored daily. Leaks could then be repaired immediately to prevent the unnecessary loss of water.

AFriForum obtained a High Court order against the VDM as first respondent and the Makhado Municipality as second respondent.

Vhembe’s municipal manager had written a letter to Mr Thivho Ralulimi, the director of technical services of the Makhado Municipality, to have machinery on site on 9 November, which did not happen. “The caterpillar [bulldozer] shall be on site on 20 November as promised by the Makhado technical director,” reads a letter to the AfriForum attorneys by Mr Masala Makumele, VDM’s municipal manager. This also did not happen.

At that stage, the local AfriForum chairperson, Mr Wally Schultz, was getting worried. “My committee was getting agitated and the lawyers were going to prepare contempt-of-court papers. What do we do to make this work? People don’t care about lawsuits, they just want water! It cost about 30 messages to Makumele and Mr Eric Masakona, water services manager of Vhembe. In the end, Masala and I got together and had a working meeting for five hours. We talked man to man and realised that between the two of us we had a great opportunity to make it work, or make a mess. He will lose his job and be held personally responsible and I will have to step down from AfriForum. Finally, Masala told me, ‘You're right. I take responsibility.’”

According to Schultz, things then happened quickly. A contractor, Mr Samuel Nemafhohoni, director of Immorial Building Constructions, and a water engineering student, was summoned to join the working meeting and was requested to start clearing the vegetation with brush cutters and pangas.

“I was contracted late on Friday. On Saturday, I bought protective clothing and tools for the men and at seven Monday morning (26th) we started,” Nemafhohoni said.

Mr Frederick Tshivhengwa, Vhembe’s technical manager, was also on site on Monday afternoon.  Tshivhengwa indicated that an estimated R5 million was in the budget for, among others, the clearing of vegetation and the repairing of water leaks.

After two working days, about 4.5km of the bushes along the 25km pipeline between Albasini and the Mowcop reservoir had been cleared. The contractor estimated the cost of the denuding to be around R500 000. It is estimated that the project will be completed by 15 December.