The Vhembe District Municipality (VDM), as water and sanitation authority for Makhado (Louis Trichardt), indicated that the final progress meeting of the Makhado Water Supply Project would be on 9 September.

This ‘final’ meeting, however, only took place on 25 September when the VDM reported in their minutes that “AfriForum registered their intention to go to court with regard to the sewer conditions and effluent being released into the stream which does not meet the standards.”

Sewage spillages in town are a common occurrence. Ms Josie de Lange reported on the AfriForum Facebook page on 26 September that sewage at the corner of Pretorius and Kleynhans Street was spraying “like a fountain again”. Belta Services had been working on the sewerage line parallel to the railway line in Pretorius Street for the past couple of weeks. The VDM admitted their concern regarding the work being done there. Concerning the state of the sewerage system, the VDM said that “a proper strategy must be in place during the unblocking of sewer pipelines in order to prevent clogging at the other end” of the line and mentioned the need to have sections isolated during the flushing of blocked sewer lines.

The Soutpansberg Ratepayers Association (SPRA) directed an official of the Department of Water and Sanitation to the problem areas on 23 September. “We are awaiting their feedback,” Ms Lani Senekal, SPRA manager, said.

The VDM reported at the ‘final’ meeting on the state of the water supply to town: “Inconsistent water supply was mentioned as a challenge and the need to have enough water supply was emphasized.”

Security of the water infrastructure still remains a headache. Two pump stations have once again been vandalised. “It seemed as if Mr Raitidzai Madimutsa, general manager of technical services, did not even know about the vandalising. I recommended that he employ Solidarity Developers to fix it, because they were the only competent contractors on the project who finished their job according to specifications,” said Mr Wally Schultz, AfriForum Louis Trichardt chairperson. 

This sparked the issue of appointing incompetent contractors. “They apparently took Solidarity off the list, instead of rewarding them for competence. Time and again I had to fight to get them paid,” Schultz said after the meeting.

The lack of a proper report-back system was another spanner in the works, resulting in managers' not being aware of what was happening on site. “At the previous meeting it was established that no basic report-back system was being employed,” Schultz said. He also cited the incident of the hospital reservoir's being dysfunctional because nobody knew where the key to the reservoir was. “A most elementary thing like looking after keys resulted in people's sitting without water,” Schultz said.

"This habit of taking decisions and not carrying them out is a problem of mismanagement. It is blatantly obvious that goals cannot be reached if resolutions are not implemented," said AfriForum's Limpopo co-ordinator, Mr Morné Mostert.