The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Mogale City is deeply unsettled at the lack of urgency shown by the Executive Mayor of Mogale City, Cllr Lucky Sele, to assist the residents of Mogale City, whose taps are running dry whilst he packs for a trip to India.
For Cllr Sele, everything but service delivery seems to take priority. His reactive approach is highlighted in a letter dated 14 December 2024, a full day after the 86-hour Eikenhof maintenance commenced—despite being notified of this planned maintenance 21 days earlier. This delay underscores a glaring lack of foresight and planning.
Yet, the mayor found time to prioritize an international trip to attend the Jaipur Festival in India. This travel was urgently tabled in council on 5 December 2024, for a trip scheduled from 16–18 December. Meanwhile, no urgent plans or contingency measures for the impending maintenance were discussed, leaving residents to bear the brunt of poor crisis management.
After 600+ days of EFF & ANC coalition in Mogale City one would imagine additional water tankers would have been procured, yet instead luxury items are beheld. For the year 2023/2024 R880 000 was spent on catering.
For context, regulations allow for a local municipality to procure up to R300 000 before competitive bidding becomes mandatory as from 2023. For perspective that would allow the almost immediate procurement of resources to assist the community, such as water tanks and purified water.
The mayor’s letter also mentions “collaborative efforts” in response to the crisis, yet basic actions like publishing a water tanker schedule for affected areas have been neglected. This raises serious doubts about the authenticity of these so-called collaborations.
Apparently, mitigation efforts are being spearheaded by Cllr Sele. This was meant to be done 21-days ago, unless Cllr Sele is confusing spearheading mitigation with dunderheaded approach.
Even ANC councillors are complaining about the lack of updates, that’s when you know it’s a crisis.
What is worse is that the Executive Mayor has very limited understanding of the crux of the outage because reference is given to the Lesotho highlands water project, instead of Eikenhof flexibility maintenance. The date is also incorrect as the 86 hours culminates at 21h00 on the 16th of December 2024 not the 15th.
Phase 2 of the Lesotho Highlands water project is only expected to be completed in 2028. Either the Spokesperson and Advisor misled the Executive Mayor, or the dislocation from the grassroots is so immense, that the office is acutely unaware of what’s happening in the city.
The main cause of the depletion of the reservoirs before Eikenhof was reduced to 20% pumping capacity, is because of the vandalism at the Eskom feeder panel, which depleted the reservoir levels because the pumps weren’t operating due to no electricity for over 20 hours. The same Mindalore pumpstation mentioned was affected by the power outage.
Seemingly the residents are increasingly unlucky to have Cllr Lucky Sele as the Executive Mayor of Mogale City. We will not relent in ensuring that the people of Mogale City have water in their taps. As a matter of urgency.