REMOTE VILLAGE GETS WATER THROUGH DRDAR’S RATU PROJECT
MEC Xolile Nqatha for Rural development and Agrarian Reform has changed the story of the Goxe villagers in Umzimvubu Municipality, Alfred Nzo district by ensuring that the Rural Appropriate Technology Unit (RATU) uses the latest technology to purify water from the mountains and bring clean, safe and drinkable water to the community. For years the Goxe villagers in Mount Frere have been drinking water from a nearby river. The water was dirty as their livestock also used the same river. An elated sixty seven(67) year old, Elsie Sonqi said “It was difficult to climb the Sikhewini Ndambane mountain and it took us an hour to get water but today that is a thing of the past.
“We are jealously guarding this development and we are now able to produce vegetables from our gardens”. Goxe is one of the nodal points that were identified for poverty alleviation in the Eastern Cape Province. The spring protection project was made possible by the topography of Umzimvubu Municipality and influenced by two main geomorphological formations that is, valleys and mountains. The department introduced this project in Goxe by installing pipes that pump water from the reservoir into a water tank. Ten (10) out of 18 taps are up and running, from the tank the water is pumped through pipes that are linked to taps in the village.
By doing this, DRDAR has fulfilled the Constitutional right of access to water to about 660 residents leaving in 132 homesteads in the village.
Thirty year old , (30) Sakhile Mawanza one of the young people trained by the department and worked in this project said “Working in the project enabled me to be able to buy things for myself and I’m no longer dependent on my parents”. This project will also be implemented in neighbouring villages like Matyeni