By Thabo Monyela
Ga-Thako-The local headman of Ga-Thako village under Modjadji kingdom has turned community water into a business by selling it to the local school and surrounding areas for personal gain.
Some community members of Ga-Thako village in Bolobedu are furious at their headman who has entered into a monetary contract of selling the water meant to be consumed by his village to Kelekeshe Secondary School and to other surrounding areas.
The School’s SGB Dapper Maphosho confirmed that the headman Thako has been their water service provider since beginning of this year and further said it doesn’t concern the school where the water comes from.
“As long as the water brought to us is consumable and hygienic, we don’t care where the headman fetches it from, we really can’t control him” Maphosho said.
It is said that Kelekeshe Sec. School has been appointing a water service provider and the previous service provider was the school’s SGB member, who was replaced by headman Thako and all these bids to provide water were never open to the society.
According to a concerned resident of Ga-Thako, the headman’s decision of making a business with community water is affecting them and during the weekends they would have no water at all since the water is only pumped on Mondays and Thursday.
The resident further alleged that since the headman has started selling the community water, people from various areas flock to their village to fetch water for the commercial purposes and that leaves them to be stranded with water sometimes.
The village’s borehole provides water to six villages.
When contacted for a comment, the unremorseful headman Thako said he doesn’t see any problem with selling community to the government institution (School).
” The person who came to you, he’s after me. I don’t see any problem in selling water to the school, because the school asked me to do it, why doesn’t he also talk about other people who come to fetch water for commercial purposes” headman Thako said.
Thako is recognised by the Limpopo Department of CoCHSTA as headman and that makes him to be under the payroll of government.
