Mpumalanga’s Albert Luthuli Municipality is appealing a court order to ensure residents are provided with clean drinking water. Judgment has been reserved in the North Gauteng High Court until tomorrow. Fuming Carolina residents refuse to drink the water provided. Water Affairs Minister Edna Molewa and the Municipality argue the water is safe for human consumption.

The residents have been without water for most of the year after acid mine drainage contaminated the main supply dam, Bosmanspruit. Experts and scientists were deployed to fix the water content but all this ended in failure. Just weeks after the High Court judgment, authorities insist the water is safe for human consumption.

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, David Mahlobo says: “The quality has significantly improved. The levels of manganese are down now in terms of acceptable levels and the resource water quality objectivity they are within their limit.”

“The levels of manganese are down now in terms of acceptable levels.”

However, residents are not buying into that explanation. An unnamed resident says: “This water is unusable because it is still bitter in taste and it still produces or it gives out that white precipitation.”

The court also wanted a report from the Albert Luthuli Municipality and the Gert Sibande Municipality on measures to provide water. They are meant to do this within a month.

The two municipalities went to court, not to report back but to appeal the case. Judgment will be handed down tomorrow.

Source: SABC News