A Free State municipality has been handed over to authorities for breaching national water regulations.

The Department of Water and Sanitation opened criminal charges against Nketoane’s municipal manager after failure to prevent consistent pollution of water resources which have hugely affected the quality of water. Departmental spokesperson, Wisane Mavasa, said the case was opened on 13 September at the Lindley police station for contravention of Section 19 (1) of the National Water Act, Act 36 of 1998.

She said the decision to open a case against Nketoane Municipality comes after several notices and directives were issued to the municipality to prevent raw sewage from flowing from a nonfunctioning pump station into the Vals River.

It's understood in December 2020 the municipality was issued with a compliance directive after failing to adhere to a notice issued by the department in 2019.  This is after a follow-up site inspection in November 2020. During this visit, the department noticed that Lindley Waste Water Treatment Works was non-operational and vandalised.

The department further discovered that the pump station meant to pump wastewater to the Waste Water Treatment Works where the sewage water would be treated before it is released back into the stream has not been working.

Mavasa said in an inspection conducted in August departmental officials noticed Pump Stations 1 and 2 were also overflowing. Municipal officials told Water and Sanitation officials that Pump Station 2 was overflowing due to a scheduled Eskom maintenance, while Pump Station 1 needed a pump motor replacement. She said Pump Station 2 also overflows during loadshedding.

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