Fighting a losing battle against constant theft

Date: 28 March 2014 By: Linda van der Westhuizen

Rage is mounting against all those who continue to destroy and steal the town’s municipal infrastructure necessary to provide residents with a constant water supply.

Thieves once again the targeted the boreholes situated at the Rietvley smallholdings, southwest of Makhado (Louis Trichardt). These boreholes supply Tshikota and the old part of town with water. The previous time when all the boreholes had been equipped, at a cost of R2.4m, all of them were stripped bare and rendered dysfunctional after one month.

Word probably had spread that the Vhembe District Municipality was busy equipping the boreholes again. The Zoutpansberger witnessed a broken concrete pump house with most of the equipment gone on 18 March. The pump house had just been completed and the borehole equipped by Solidarity Developers four days earlier.

Sub-contractor Johan Kotze of Johan Pompe arrived at the pump house, which only needed electrification in order to start pumping. When Kotze unlocked the heavy steel door on the 18th, the concrete pump house which had seemed impenetrable had been broken into. Thieves had smashed through a back wall and bent open the steel reinforcement. Two mono pump heads and two 5.5 kW motors that had been lying on the floor were removed.

The stolen equipment is valued at R70 000. The contractors, Messrs Liano Viviers and Johan Kotze, afterwards removed all other equipment from the site. “They could not steal the mono pump that was fitted in the blockhouse; it is far too heavy to remove,” Kotze said. It is suspected that the perpetrators used a vehicle because of the weight of the equipment.

“Our goal was to connect this borehole and the one near Woodstock on Wednesday (19th) and then continue with the others. This site must get security as soon as possible,” Viviers said.

Mr Samuel Ndou, whose cattle graze at the site, said that he had received a phone call on Friday evening (14th) around 09:30. “They told me that my cattle were in the road. I drove there and found the gate open and the chain of my lock gone. Every couple of months they come here and steal the machines. I don’t believe that it is always just Zimbabweans…” Ndou said.

The chairperson of AfriForum Louis Trichardt, Mr Wally Schultz, was enraged that AfriForum’s objective of getting consistent water to town had been delayed by thieves. “AfriForum insisted that a case be opened, unlike in the past when there were no dockets when thieves and vandals had stripped the water infrastructure. Not opening a case means no investigation and no repercussions for the thieves. The swiftness of this theft leads one to think that this could be an ‘inside job’… someone knew that the next step was to get security systems at these blockhouses and they knew that they would have to act fast…” Schultz said.

A criminal case has since been opened with the Makhado SAPS.

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Linda van der Westhuizen

Linda van der Westhuizen has been with Zoutnet since 2001. She has a heart for God, people and their stories. Linda believes that every person is unique and has a special story to tell. It follows logically that human interest stories is her speciality. Linda finds working with people and their leaders in the economic, educational, spiritual and political arena very rewarding. “I have a special interest in what God is doing in our town, province and nation and what He wants us to become,” says Linda.

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