For years, the high-lying community of Hillside in Nxuba (formerly Cradock) in the Inxuba Yethemba Local Municipality (IYLM) has been forced to live without running water.
Despite the presence of water infrastructure, the taps have never delivered a drop.
Residents are entirely dependent on water trucks from the Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM), a system so dysfunctional it borders on neglect. These water trucks are meant to refill one JoJo tank every week in this community. Instead, they arrive sporadically and unpredictably, leaving residents to go days, and often weeks, without water.
This is not a natural disaster or an unavoidable challenge. It is the direct result of sustained government failure, mismanagement, and a complete disregard for the dignity of this community.
Water is essential to life and access to water is enshrined in the South African Constitution.
It is for this reason that today I was joined by DA EC Midlands Constituency Leader, Heinrich Müller MPL, and DA councillors from the Inxuba Yethemba Local Municipality, for whom the Chris Hani District Municipality is the designated water services provider, to deliver 16 000 litres of potable water to the parched residents of Hillside.
[see pictures here, here, here and here]
Hillside is not an isolated case. Across the IYLM municipality, in the towns of Nxuba and Middelburg, prolonged water outages have become a grim part of daily life.
This is the direct consequence of the Chris Hani District Municipality’s inability to keep pump stations operational and its chronic failure to repair and maintain basic water infrastructure.
What residents are enduring is not inconvenience, it is systemic collapse brought about by sustained ANC incompetence and neglect.
Our 16 000-litre donation was not a publicity exercise or for political expediency, it was an act of necessity, stepping in where an ANC government has once again failed to meet its most basic obligation to its people.
The DA has fought relentlessly for solutions to the Inxuba Yethemba Local Municipality’s water crisis.
We have fought in the municipal council, the Provincial Legislature, and Parliament, and even by escalating the matter to the South African Human Rights Commission.
Yet despite every intervention, the suffering of residents continues unabated.
This is why the DA has now stepped in and will use its own resources to make water available to those in need at least once a month. This is not something a political party should have to do, but it is something that must be done when government fails.
The absence of water strips people of their dignity, their health, and their sense of worth. No community should be forced to live like this.
When a DA government takes office in the Inxuba Yethemba Local Municipality after the 2026 local government elections, we will ensure that residents are able to live meaningful lives of dignity, with reliable access to basic services they can depend on.
The DA is on it and fighting for you. Together, we can get Nxuba and Middelburg working.