The joy of Elim residents and people who operate businesses at the Hubyeni Shopping Centre was cut short when the newly fixed sewer started spilling over again last Thursday morning.

The spokesperson for Vhembe District Municipality (VDM), Mr Matodzi Ralushai, pleads with the affected bodies and community to exercise a little patience while the technical team from the district municipality continues working on the damaged part of the sewer. “The supervisor led a team which went there (Hubyeni) and fixed the problem of the spilling sewer in December,” said Ralushai. He maintains that the sewerage system at the shopping centre had been constructed badly in the first place. “Any small shift of the ground around the sewer, caused by rain, dislocates the sewer pipes and then the problem starts showing up,” Ralushai explains.

“Now that the problem has started again, we will send our people to fix that part of the system again. In the meantime, we have appointed a contractor who will repair the damaged sewer as soon as possible, so that the problem does not recur.”

Apparently, the leaking sewerage system had affected the health of local communities around Elim and also had had a negative effect on businesses in the Hubyeni Shopping Centre for about five months before the district municipality finally attended to the problem.

“I was happy when the sewer stopped immediately after you had published the story in your newspaper,” Asire Degefa (29) said. He operates a small restaurant nearby. “People were starting to flock to my business again because there was no bad stench to shoo them away. Now I am losing customers again.”

Prior to the fixing of the sewer at the beginning of December 2012, Synergy Income Fund Limited head of operations Mr Craig Holmwood revealed that his company, which runs Hubyeni Shopping Centre, had incurred costs in excess of R200 000 in trying to resolve the sewerage problem. “The Makhado Municipality is denying us our rights to basic municipal services and this is affecting our business centre and the neighbouring community negatively," he was quoted saying in an earlier story.

Holmwood blamed the Makhado Municipality for failure to address the problem adequately even long after his company had notified the municipality about the problem.