Eight-year-old dies after being struck by vehicle

Bereaved family members from Matswale in Musina, who lost their eight-year-old boy, believe that the accident that had claimed his life could have been avoided if running water were available in the area.

The boy, Lesedi Ndou, was run over by a motorist on Sunday, 11 December, when he tried to cross the nearby road. The boy was a Grade 2 learner at St Martin De Porres Primary School.

“Our child would not have been run over by the motorist if he did not have to use the nearby bushes as a toilet,” said a close family relative who did not want to be identified.

According to Musina residents, their taps had been dry for five days. They could not make use of their flushing toilets, so most of them resorted to using the bushes for toilets. The Ndou family stay in Matswale, in Musina-Nancefield.

The Vhembe District Municipality (VDM) responded by saying it supplied water to Matswale on a day-to-day basis, but due to loadshedding, the municipality sometimes supplied water on a rotational basis and augmented the supply with water trucks.

The Ndou family finds it difficult to buy water as none of them is employed. “For those five days we had no water. We called the municipality, asking them to send water tanks, but we were told the trucks are broken,” said the close relative.

The VDM acknowledged that two water trucks that were supposed to deliver water to Musina residents were unavailable, but said that another tanker had been deployed to assist.

Limpopo Mirror got in touch with the Musina branch of the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO). “We are calling on the VDM to do the honourable thing and surrender the [status of] water authority to Musina Municipality. The Musina community has suffered enough under the VDM’s administration,” said Reekson Matamela, the chairperson of the Musina SANCO branch.

Councillor Nkhanedzeni Godfrey Mawela, mayor of Musina, sent a message of condolence to the bereaved family on Sunday.

Date:21 December 2022

By: Bernard Chiguvare

Bernard Chiguvare is a Zimbabwean-born journalist. He writes mainly for the online publication, Groundup.

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