ALMOST 40 years after independence, marginalised Tsholotsho villagers are still living in abject poverty, with no access to clean water and toilets, exposing them to waterborne diseases.
Villagers from Pumula, Nkunzi and Simanje 1 and 2 under chief Mahlathini and Gampu, who rely on unprotected water sources, said their situation has been exacerbated by the El-Nino-induced droughts which led to many of their water sources drying up.
"In Pumula, we survive on drinking and cooking with muddy dam water, which we share with our livestock.
This season, the dams in our vicinity have dried up and we have to walk 8km to the nearest water source and have to get there around three in the morning before wild animals and our livestock muddy it up.
Dlomo bemoaned government’s failure to drill boreholes in the area.
Water will be cleaner during the rainy season because animals then survive on rivers, but now human beings and animals drink from the same source," Tshuma said.
"Very few people have Blair toilets in Tsholotsho and we resort to the bush and during rainy season, the excreta is washed into our dams, contaminating our water sources," another villager said.
Tsholotsho North legislator Sibangumuzi Khumalo said the water issue was affecting the whole constituency where no dam has ever been constructed since independence.
People of Tsholotsho, to be specific those from my constituency, have never drunk clean water.
Everyone relies on those small community-made dams, but the situation becomes dire, particularly this season because even those dams are empty and there are no rivers.