Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Dr Igor Scheurkogel and Sesotho soundbite by Cllr Stone Makhema.
Residents of Oranjeville and Metsimaholo Township have endured nearly two weeks of unreliable water supply after the latest interruption began on 21 July 2026. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Metsimaholo Local Municipality has been painfully slow to complete the necessary repairs and restore a reliable supply.
Residents have been forced to depend on municipal water tankers. However, these tankers have arrived irregularly, often without residents being informed beforehand of their routes, delivery points or expected arrival times.
At a public meeting I hosted in Oranjeville on 1 August, residents reported that water delivered by some tankers appeared dirty and was not considered safe to drink. These complaints require immediate water-quality testing and a formal response from the municipality.
The Metsimaholo Local Municipality must explain why the affected equipment cannot be safely isolated at the plant through dedicated switchgear, circuit breakers and isolators without interrupting the electricity supply to the entire community.
This points to either inadequate electrical design, defective infrastructure, or a failure to properly plan for the operation and maintenance of this essential facility.
A replacement pump was reportedly to be installed on 31 July.
However, according to information provided by the Director of Technical Services, a further problem developed with the pump’s electrical contactor and could only be attended to on Monday.
Metsimaholo has not provided any feedback on why the newly constructed elevated reservoir has still not been connected to the treatment works and distribution network. The reservoir is positioned at an elevation that allows gravity-fed distribution to Oranjeville and Metsimaholo Township. Once connected and properly commissioned, it should provide additional storage capacity, stabilise pressure and reduce the immediate impact of short-term pumping failures.
The existing system is also dangerously vulnerable because it reportedly depends on a single raw-water abstraction pump at the Vaal Dam. The pump has no adequate backup, limited security and no reliable automated reservoir-level control or telemetry. It must therefore be manually activated when reservoir levels fall.
The water treatment works also does not have a functioning standby generator to maintain abstraction and treatment operations during electricity outages. This is particularly unacceptable because the municipality has itself acknowledged, through its public-participation and budget processes, the need to install diesel generators at the Oranjeville abstraction point and water treatment works.
The continued water failures form part of the broader evidence being gathered following an oversight visit conducted with the South African Human Rights Commission at the home of Ms Dawn Thompson, who lives next to the Oranjeville Water Treatment Works. Ms Thompson, who turns 71 this year, has repeatedly had to contend with water leaking from a cracked municipal reservoir wall towards and around her property. No elderly resident should be forced to live with the constant fear that failing municipal infrastructure will flood or damage her home.
The SAHRC has subsequently advised me that it is consolidating complaints and documentary evidence concerning municipal service-delivery failures across the Free State for possible legal action, with the assistance of Legal Aid South Africa.
The DA will engage the Executive Mayor and municipal management and demand:
- The immediate restoration of a safe and reliable water supply;
- Urgent testing of all water distributed through tankers;
- The connection and commissioning of the new elevated reservoir;
- A functioning standby generator at the abstraction point and treatment works;
- Backup pumping capacity, security and automated level-control systems; and
- A comprehensive operational and maintenance plan for the Oranjeville water-supply system.
Oranjeville residents do not need more promises, temporary repairs or excuses. They need infrastructure that works, proper contingency planning and a municipality that treats access to water as the constitutional and human-rights obligation that it is.
The DA will continue to fight until residents of Oranjeville and Metsimaholo Township have a safe, sufficient and dependable water supply.