MPUMALANGA – Residents of Luphisi Village in Mpumalanga have staged a protest over a chronic water shortage, alleging that their taps have run dry for more than a decade despite repeated engagements with local authorities. The demonstration highlights the escalating water crisis in the region, prompting direct intervention and dialogue with the designated water service provider.
Community members barricaded access roads with tree branches, rocks, and other debris after years of meetings, letters, and appointments failed to resolve the issue. Residents report being forced to purchase water from private tankers at a cost of approximately 400 rand twice a month—a financial burden that unemployed youth and pensioners cannot sustain. Consequently, some families have resorted to collecting contaminated water from nearby rivers and streams. Community leaders emphasized that children born in the village over the last ten years have never seen water flow from a tap, and they issued a non-partisan warning that residents may boycott future elections if the crisis remains unaddressed.
In response to the ongoing stalemate, the community presented two immediate proposals to the water utility. First, they requested approval to fund and install a transformer to operationalize a local borehole that currently lacks a generator. Second, they demanded a joint valve test at the main reservoir to inspect the pipeline and identify the root cause of the distribution failure.
A spokesperson for the water and wastewater service provider Suluanzi addressed the community’s grievances directly. The spokesperson firmly denied the claim that Luphisi Village has been without water for ten years. According to the utility, the village, like several nearby areas, receives water on a rotational schedule—specifically Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays—because demand in these expanding informal settlements exceeds the capacity of the bulk water infrastructure. The utility stated that the village last received a scheduled water supply on Sunday, August 23, 2026, and that weekday supply is typically supplemented via a local borehole.
The spokesperson further explained that the water volume reaching Luphisi is severely compromised by approximately 1,000 new households in adjacent settlements that have established illegal connections on the bulk water pump line dedicated to filling the Luphisi Reservoir.
Regarding the community’s proposals, the utility representative noted that a valve test at the reservoir is currently unfeasible because the water level sits at only 20 percent, which is insufficient to push water through the lines for diagnostic purposes. On the matter of the borehole, the spokesperson stated that the utility cannot install the necessary generator or operate the facility until the project is officially handed over by the local municipality, which holds the overarching service concession.
The protest was conducted peacefully, with law enforcement officials present in numbers to prevent any damage to public infrastructure and ensure the safety of all parties. Following the engagements with the utility representative, residents have temporarily suspended their road blockades while the water utility reviews and implements aspects of their proposals.
The situation underscores broader regional challenges, including unplanned land occupation and infrastructure overload, which require coordinated solutions between the community, the water service provider, and the local municipality to restore reliable, constitutionally guaranteed access to clean water for all residents.