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Mabirimisa Bus Service's general manager, Mr Robert Mabirimisa, is afraid the company's building might fall down asometime soon.

“If you fix the sewage problem, you get arrested!”

Date: 11 July 2014 By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

“If you continue fixing this sewerage line on your own, we will have you charged as criminals and finally get you locked up in jail.”

The general manager of the Mabirimisa Bus Service in Makhado, Mr Robert Mabirimisa, couldn't believe his ears when an official from the Makhado Municipality said those frightening words. He was forbidding the bus company from diverting the problematic sewerage river which had flooded the depot's yard since June.

“They are refusing to help us and, when we use our own money to solve the problem affecting us, they threaten us with the police,” Mabirimisa explained during Limpopo Mirror's visit to the depot in the industrial area on Monday.

The raw sewage, which has grown into a huge dam at the back of the depot building, is badly affecting the paving, back walls, ground and an expensive compressor station at the depot.

On 25 June, the bus company reported the matter to Vhembe District Municipality's manager of water services in Makhado, Mr David Mukosi, who promised that the workers would be sent to fix the problem. By 27 June, no workers had come and the bus company decided to hire a TLB at their own expense, to come and divert the mess from rushing into their yard.

“At one time, our big compressor was damaged by the water from this dam and we had to get it fixed at around R30 000,” Mabirimisa said while shaking his head. “It's painful on our side and the municipality's officials are not experiencing what we are going through as a company.”

The sewerage system from and outside the LTT Abbatoir has been dysfunctional for years. It formed an odorous dam along the road and the railway lines across Malherbe Street. It seemed that Transnet complained about the perpetual mess which flooded the rail lines (and was damaging the rail infrastructure as well) and the municipality had to divert the sewage to the depot's yard, said Mabirimisa.

“Our building is rotting and it will be falling down soon,” said a worried Mabirimisa. “The smelly dam poses a health hazard to workers and management. We have all caught a serious flu from this mess here.”

Mabirimisa added that the company had had a very good relationship with both the local and district municipality, but that he was shocked by the conduct of the official who ordered them to refrain from fixing the problem. “Transport is the backbone of economic development in this country,” he said. “But our municipality seems not to notice that. Or do they want us to close our business, so that they can be happy when they see all our employees without jobs?”

Vhembe District Municipality's media liaison officer, Mr Moses Shibambu, promised to enquire from the relevant technicians and get back to the newspaper by the end of Monday (which he did). “The information which I got from our office in Makhado is that the case had been properly attended to,” Shibambu said.

On Monday, Mabirimisa phoned Mr Mukosi and requested him to urgently come and attend to the case. “He said he had sent people to our place and that they were busy working at our place,” said Mabirimisa. “But there were no municipal workers who had come – a civil servant was lying to me!”

Mabirimisa further worried that the Vhembe District Municipality's technicians in Makhado were providing the media liaison officer (Mr Shibambu) with wrong information.“If you fi x the sewage
problem, you get arrested!”

 
 
 

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Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

 
 

More photos... 

Even the inside walls of the toilets are affected. Unhappy: Mr Robert Mabirimisa. Mr Robert Mabirimisa stands next to a dam of sewage.

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