Cape Town: If former president Jacob Zuma built a dam as asked in 2016, Kannaland wouldn’t have had water problems today, incumbent mayor of the embattled municipality, Jeffrey Donson told parliament on Tuesday.
“In 2016 we wrote a letter to Zuma asking assistance to build a dam from which there was a response from national saying they will assist, but provincial said they didn’t want anything to do with such a project,” said Donson.
“It would have been built in Ladismith, we never would have had water problems,” he said.
Ladismith is a town included in the southern Kannaland Local Municipality.
Zuma’s spokesman, Mzwanele Manyi told Weekend Argus that Donson should follow up with the current administration.
“Zuma was the head of state, so any undertakings that would have been made, would have been made in his capacity as a head of state ... so if anyone has got any issue about any claimed promises made by Zuma or anything that has to do with Zuma while he was head of state, go to government of the day, the state is still there ... I’m sure the responsible minister will be able to respond to this,” said Manyi.
Donson was answering questions posed by Parliament’s portfolio committee on cooperative governance and traditional affairs.
The committee is conducting an oversight visit to the Kannaland Municipality from Tuesday.
Committee secretary, Shereen Cassiem told Weekend Argus that the oversight visit will be conducted over a period of three days.
End of last year, desperate residents of Kannaland, have had their water cut off intermittently.
Deputy mayor Werner Meshoa attributed the water cuts to a “bone dry climate” and “blackouts”.
“It’s a lack of rain not service delivery ... load shedding is also to blame,” said Meshoa.
“We did not receive a lot of rainfall.”
As a result, the Garden Route District Municipality said it was looking into possibly declaring a local drought disaster necessary, be it for one area, a few or the entire region.
Weekend Argus.