As the ANC is slowing losing power in the Free State, is national government allowing the province to collapse?
31 January 2022
Last week I spent two days in the Free State, where I can confirm there is no support, monitoring or intervention happening by national government. There's no 'District Development Model', at least not in the conventional understanding of 'development'. Aside from the resilience and innovation of ordinary folk, I only saw regression.
In the Matjhabeng Local Municipality (Welkom) and Manguang Metro (Bloemfontein) there are no technical support teams, no financial recovery plans being implemented, and no 'compacting' between municipal officials and private sector experts who can help solve the water crisis, the sewage crisis, and the waste crisis.
What keeps sewage from flooding large parts of Welkom are diesel-powered pumps. They relieve the pressure in blocked municipal lines. The sewage is pumped into open stormwater canals. If one of these pumps stops working, or if heavy rain starts falling, residents' despair, because then the sewage pushes up into their streets and backyards.
One Welkom resident has built his own system to drain sewage from blocked municipal lines under his house, so that the sewage runs into the street, and not his backyard. It’s not ideal, but if the state fails, what do you do? The resident tells me he still pays his municipal bills in full.