SIPHOFANENI: Samson Sithole, the Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of the Eswatini Water and Agricultural Enterprise(ESWADE) says, they temporarily stopped water supply to Othandweni residents at Siphofaneni amid illegal connections.
Responding to this Swaziland News on Sunday afternoon after some residents approached this publication demanding answers why ESWADE stopped the water supply, the CEO said, they acted based on recommendations subsequent to deliberations during a community meeting held this weekend.
“The ESWADE acknowledges that there was indeed a temporal fault on the water supply system (as with all systems), which was subsequently attended three weeks ago.Regarding the matter at hand, the ESWADE is pleased to announce that the community has been empowered enough to deal with their own internal issues using their legal guiding document, which is their constitution.During a meeting held yesterday, it is the community who advised the ESWADE to pause all water supply until illegal connections and non payments have been dealt with. NB: 55/600 homesteads have paid. As such we are working under the instruction of the community to deal with all illegal connections and defaulting users,” said the CEO.
The ESWADE CEO further mentioned that, it was imperative for the community to understand the importance of paying their monthly water tariff, “which by the way is a very small flat rate”. He said, the monies collected were for both operations and maintenance of the system, such as pipe bursts etc.
“The ESWADE handed over this water scheme to the community years back, and it is expected that they have the capacity to run/maintain it on their own. However, The ESWADE is currently embarking on installing solar power on all potable water schemes so that communities have very minimal pumping costs.Energy costs affect both large and small enterprises, hence this intervention by the ESWADE because our paramount objective as an organisation is sustainability.Therefore, disconnections for homesteads who have not paid will continue and illegal connections will continue to be dealt with using the arm of the law,” said the CEO.
One of the ESWADE Dams.