The family at house 1216 in Tshikota believes that their continuing cries about the hazardous trench of streaming sewage situated near their house is falling on deaf ears.

For two and a half years, Ms Sophie Ndou had been trying to get the Makhado Municipality to come and fix the problematic manhole and the trench of sewage, but in vain. It later emerged that the sewerage system in town falls under the Vhembe District Municipality.

The Limpopo Mirror phoned the spokesperson for Vhembe District Municipality, Mr Matodzi Ralushai, late last year. Ralushai promised that the sewage problem would be attended to, including the open trench which the Makhado Municipality had dug from the sewerage mainline to divert the seemingly uncontrollable overflow of sewage onto the open, bushy ground.

The trench remains open, only about 15 metres away from the houses at Mibomoni section.

Two months ago, Ralushai promised to get back to the newspaper with a detailed response after he was sent two similar e-mailed media inquiries. Numerous phone calls followed, but Ralushai kept saying that he was in a meeting or else busy at the municipality's imbizo.

On Tuesday last week, when pressed to answer the e-mails sent to him, he said that he thought the problem had been fixed some time ago. “I am very sorry. I will speak with the officer at the Makhado Municipality to find out what is actually happening,” he said.

In the afternoon he got back and said that he acknowledged the seriousness of the problem. "We can't pretend that this is not a serious case and then ignore it," he said. "This matter is now being treated as an emergency case, and we have hired a contractor to completely close that manhole (trench) because it is affecting the residents."

Meanwhile, Ndou said that they had lost all faith in both the local and district municipality. “Our cries are falling on deaf ears,” she said. “I witnessed a painful scenario [three] weeks ago, when my neighbour's child nearly fell into the river of faeces. Now we understand that the municipality will not be helping us before they get a report that one of our children has fallen into the trench and died.”

Vhembe District Municipality's media liason offier, Mr Moses Shibambu, visited Tshikota on Monday. He took some pictures of the odorous trench from a distance. "I wish the affected families were around, so we could assure them that we have hired a contractor to fix this problem," he said.