The Vhembe District Municipality (VDM) and Vhembe's residents have developed its very own unique water shuffle in recent weeks.

This “dance” sees residents moving from one tap to another to get water, and municipal officials allocating the blame to different scapegoats on a weekly basis.

It is a very interesting dance technique. For example, residents of Louis Trichardt were blamed this week for the continued water shortages in town, albeit that these allegations were not made by the VDM but by local politicians instead. “Residents are wasting water,” said local Democratic Alliance councillor Brian du Plooy on Monday on social media. “Please assist us – we just can’t water gardens. Water is scarce,” he stated.

Du Plooy’s plea was emphasized by the VDM’s appointed contractor, Belta Services, which is currently working ceaselessly on the Albasini Dam’s pipeline.

The Louis Trichardt-based company’s Mr Henk de Swardt expressed his concern over wasteful residents. He contacted the newspaper last week to share his worries with regard to the latest water crisis. According to De Swardt, the level of water use in especially Louis Trichardt is alarming. “Reservoirs should fill up during the evenings, when residents are asleep and less water is consumed. This is not happening in Louis Trichardt,” he said.

De Swardt speculated that emergency water tanks could be blamed for depleting the reservoir’s resources during the evening. Another deduction he made is that residents simply do not care about preserving water, by constantly watering their gardens and not repairing leaking taps or toilets.

“We work tirelessly on the pipeline and have nearly repaired all the leaks on the line. The major leaks were the first we tackled,” said De Swardt. While most residents conveyed their gratitude for De Swart and Belta Services' gallant and continued efforts, many still view the VDM as the main culprit who necessitated the installation of emergency water tanks in the first place.

Even so, De Swardt said residents should keep in mind that local water resources are in danger of being completely depleted if conservation measures are not put into place with immediate effect. “Louis Trichardt residents use the equivalent of 300 tons of water on a daily basis. That is way too much,” said De Swardt. He also said that since 19 February, the Albasini system had been supplying an average of 9.2 million litres of water to town a day, which is in line with the standards of the Department of Water Affairs.

Du Plooy added that residents should keep in mind that the existing water supply pipeline can only manage five to seven million litres of water. He further said that on Wednesday this week, that the Mowkop reservoir had sunk to the 15% mark. “This is due to appallingly bad management by the VDM,” he said. According to him, the VDM supplied the Tshikota reservoir from Mowkop over the weekend, but did not close the valve in time and lost valuable water in the process.

For the moment, Belta Services will this week continue to work on the Albasini pipeline. With the start of this week, they focused on the borehole system to get all the equipment in working order.

In the meantime, the DA confirmed this week that the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) had received the complaint they had lodged. The DA claims that the VDM supplied untreated water to residents during February, and asked the SAHRC to investigate.

The Results of the DA’s tests on the water supplied from the Ablasini Dam were still outstanding.

The VDM also confirmed this week that they had declared the Vhembe region a drought disaster area, in line with the national and provincial declaration made in November last year.