Musina residents want answers over SA-Zim water deal

In early 2022 a group of residents from Nancefield township in Musina – desperate from crippling water shortages in the border town gatecrashed a meeting of municipal officials and a delegation from the ministry of water and sanitation to demand answers.
“We wanted to be part of that meeting because we wanted to know why we didn’t have water,” recalled local resident and community leader Peter Jack Mokgobi.
Musina which is still in the grip of water outages that last for days on end, is set to benefit from an agreement signed recently by minister of Water and Sanitation Senzo Mchunu and his Zimbabwean counterpart Dr Anxious Jongwe Masuka.
According to the cross-border deal Zimbabwe will transfer treated water from the Beitbridge Water Treatment Works to the town of Musina about 25km away. Masuka said Zimbabwe is committed to supplying a maximum of 15 million cubic metres
of treated water a year to Musina town for the duration of the agreement.
“And we hope this contribution will alleviate the water challenges but also will contribute to economic development of this region,” he said.
But details around the deal, such as who will fund the project and for how much remain unclear.
While Masuka said Zimbabwe has already financed the construction of the raw water storage and piping to the treatment works, Mchunu indicated financing for the project will be sourced.
But if residents thought the deal which they knew nothing about until it was announced was about to solve their water woes soon, they have another two years to wait. The project is set for completion in July 2026.
Meanwhile, residents continue to suffer. “As we speak now there is no water in Musina. The community as a whole, we have no idea what has just happened [with the Zimbabwe deal]. We don’t even know who is representing us [in the deal]. When it comes out the water is dirty. We wanted to ask the minister to drink the water from the tap then we would follow his example and also drink the water,” said Mokgobi.
He leads a community organisation called Musina To The Front. He is also a member of the regional leadership of the SA National Civics Association (SANCO) in the Vhembe district.
At the signing ceremony in Musina, where officials cooled down with an endless supply of bottled water, Mchunu cited an example of a leaking pipe he spotted during an inspection. Within a week of his enquiry about the leak the pipe was fixed and some areas of the town had water.
“The town is short of water, but water is leaking. Quite a large volume of water that we saw, but it took hardly a week. I think it was quite a few days. They started showing us, sending us pictures of the pipe that had been fixed, and all we needed to do, it almost was drive a car, go to Musina, go back to Pretoria. And this is the part we don’t like about some of our water service authorities that have responsibility of doing this,” he said.
Mchunu’s response when asked about infrastructure challenges was telling.
“Well, I wouldn’t know what infrastructure you’re referring to. I travelled quite a distance on the bank of the river [Limpopo] by boat. I saw very little of infrastructure,”
Mchunu said.
As Mchunu and his Zimbabwean counterpart celebrated the signing of the deal that is set to bring water to the town in two years with a gala dinner, residents of Musina continued to face the challenge of dry taps.
Donald Ramuthivheli, a resident of Extension 2 in Nancefield who lives with four other family members said they are forced to spend R10 on a 20 litre drum of water when they experience water shortages.
“We go for two to three days without water. Sometimes even seven days. But the bill remains the same. We are paying every month for water,” lamented Ramuthivheli.
He said he is billed between R1100 and R1200 for water and services every month despite the water cuts.
“If you don’t pay for the water they block your electricity. That’s why we are fighting that the water authority must return to us,” he said. But the hopes of Musina residents are not so high.
“They had the gala dinner and signed the deal [with Zimbabwe] and then later called the community, but what for? Water is life so this matter must be treated seriously. Last time he [Mchunu] took two years to come back to us. They think we are kids. They are beating about the bush because we know this water is for the SEZ [MMSEZ]. We don’t want to go back there [shutdown protests],” said Ramuthivheli. – Mukurukuru Media