Paying for a service which we never get

Regarding water and service related issues from the Hartbee****rt irrigation board

For section W38, C15, Losperfontein Brits

After a nice long battle which we have been trying to resolve since 2012, I am again attempting to resolve this matter of paying for a service which I am not getting.

On 12 Sept 2022 I phoned Glen Brown at 08:18 to inform him that we are not getting our water as we requested for the first time in 9 months. (We did not request in 9 months because it is ALWAYS a struggle and a fight to get our water which we have paid for). He asks me which side is taking the water and I inform him it is the people behind us with the truck depot, the owner is Theuns Voster and his foreman is Jan Erasmus. He tells me that they have not requested water this week so the sluice must be closed, upon which I reply they have a lock in it 247. This same lock is never removed and this same lock and issue has been ongoing for years. Of which Glen Brown knows since he started working at the irrigation board. These locks was never on the sluices until 2021. Glen told me he is busy with late applications and will send the water Fiscal Robert to come and solve the issue, and he will come out a bit later. At 11:24 we still do not have water, and the issue is still not resolved and both Glen and Robert has not been here. So I phone Glen at 11:24 again. He says he will send Robert, and is on the way. But he will give us water on Tuesday to make up for the loss. I tell him that it will not help if the neighbours sluice remains open. At 12:48 I phone Desiree from the neighbours sluice which is still open and ask her whom I should talk to, since the sluice is still open and no one has been here since I phoned at 08:18 this morning. Desiree has also had to deal with this same issue here when the area representitive is on holiday. We can not directly contact the neighbour as we received death threats and are being intimidated by them on a daily basis.

Desiree gives me Peter van den Heever (head of Hartbee****rt irrigation board)and Vaughan Thomas (manager hartbee****rt irrigation) nr’s . At 13:10 I manage to reach Vaughan and I tell him that we are not getting our water since the neighbour has a lock on his sluice. He asks who the neighbour is and I tell him Theuns Voster. He tells me that this is not the irrigation boards problem since they do not manage side sluices. We have to sort it out with the neighbour and police. I said to him that I pay water every month and I pay for a service which I do not get? He tells me that we actually do not pay for the water, just for the fact that they (the irrigation board) open the main sluice. So I ask him if the neighbour *****s our water and the irrigation board do not stop him does this then mean that all of us can then “*****” water since there is no consequences? And since we do not pay for water, does this mean all of us can take as much water as we want. Since it means we are then not *****ing from the Goverment right. I ask him which goverment agency do they fall under and he says no one. I ask him how is it possible if a country has water rights that we are not allowed our water. I tell him this is unacceptable that I pay them and they apparently get paid for doing nothing and that I will take this matter further. He tells me “go ahead, do your worst”.

At 13:16 I phone Peter van den heever and he tells me he is in a meeting, can I phone back in a bit.

At 13:33 I phone Charmaine Jenner at the Brits Police station to ask what is the procedure which we should follow in this regard upon Vaughan advice. She advises us to open a ******** case against the neighbour and a harrasment suit at the Brits High Court.

At 13:39 I phone Glen again, and I advise him that I have started talking to the police. He says, no please don’t involve the police, he says he is on the way.

At 13:42 Peter van den Heever phones back and I explain the situation to him. He says he will follow up and get back to us. Which as of 18 Sept he still has not gotten back to us. I said to him I will buy the 2 locks for the 2 sluices, so that they can solve this problem. Since Robert already has to open and close the main sluice to the bottom farm which is less that 5 steps from the 2 problem sluices. Then they can manage the 2 sluices and no one ever has to complain about water being ******, and neither our yard or the woman who lives alongside the sluices have to worry about flooding again. (By the way, the people who live alongside the sluice do not even have a sluice and they have to phone Glen, Desiree and the irrigation board constantly to stop their yard from being flooded when the Vosters/Erasmus or Obe team close their sluice when they do not want their water. They also do not stop their water so either this woman or us get flooded.)

Glen arrives at 14:30 and says that he has spoken to the people alongside us and that Jan Erasmus is on holiday. So at 15:00 they close their sluice for the first time that day. At 15:30 Robert comes down and changes the sluice settings in the main line and stops our water from coming to our sluice. So we had exactly 30 min of water for the whole 12 hour period. (This year alone we have been paying for water for 9 months and only got 30 minutes of water, that must make the irrigation board so proud and rich). What I wonder is how Robert could now arrive at 15:30 to close our water, but he did not arrive the 3 times which I was told he would come out. And he never shows up when we are told he would come out in all the years. When we do drive to Roberts house in the middle of the day, 2 black woman in sleep wear tell us to stop bothering Robert at his home, and that we can phone him if we had a problem. Which we can never reach him on. We have several times had to ask Fiscal Piet (who died) and his son to help us, and he would take us to where Robert is. And in all the past 10 years nothing has been done to solve this. Before Robert started working in our area, we had to go and collect the man who was working and living in Roberts house to come and sort out the problem here. He was usually so drunk that he could not help, and piet had to try to assist us, even when this was not his area. So 10 years on...

Everytime that we ask for water, our water is stopped between 15:00-16:00 by Robert the fiscal and the main sluice to Obe’s farm is adjusted that he gets all the water. We are also lucky if the water even gets to us before 8:00 in the morning as Robert does not adjust Obe’s sluice early in the morning. Which means even when we get water we NEVER get water for the 12 hours which we requested. We ask for water on Monday during the day as we know that we will never see any water if we ask for it on any other day. And then we have to fight for that water everytime. I also want to know how if the Fiscal Robert closes our water early after we requested a 12 hour cycle, does this then mean I must report Robert or the Hartbee****rt irrigation board to the police. Because if Robert closes our water early this means he is also *****ing our water. And since he regulates the sluice to Obe for water affairs, this means that i must report water affairs to the police. Right?

Since 2021 we have started to lock our sluice when we are supposed to get water as this same neighbour Voster/Erasmus from the truck depot closes our sluice everytime we are supposed to get water. The rest of the time we leave our sluice closed without a lock. When either of the 2 neighbours do not want their requested water they open our sluice without our knowledge, flooding our property. This also applies to the woman who lives alongside the sluices. Both neighbours (Voster/Erasmus and Obe (and since Obe’s sluice is regulated by Robert the Fiscal) lock their sluices when they do not want their water, which results in them flooding this womans yard. She then walks over the road and opens our sluice, flooding our veldt. The last time this happened was a few weeks ago just before the dry period. The resulting damage caused all of our Winter feeding to be destroyed. Causing our animals not to have any winder feed. I now have to feed them pellets, and bags full of horse feed. Costing me thousands of rands. And again, who is responsible for the damage to our property as we did not ask for that water. The Vosters/Erasmus team or Robert the water Fiscal? We had to go and put a lock into our sluice to prevent this water from streaming in a second week. Since we after all did not ask for water. After the dry period we removed our lock again. And only lock it when it is our turn to get water.

This begs the question, what service are we paying for and if we pay for a service how is the people who take the money every month not responsible for us not getting the service we paid for.

In 2012 we had to enlist the services of the Brits Pos after we could not resolve the issue of our yard being flooded by a faulty main line which belongs to the irrigation board and they did not feel it is their problem. (Im including those documents and photos).

At 2016 after again not being able to solve the problem of still not getting our water. And the Hartbee****rt irrigation offices not being willing to assist we again contacted the Brits Pos who refered us to Leon Basson from the DA. We also visited the Irrigation offices to try to get this resolved. (Again I am attaching the letter). After involving the DA, your offices put in a new locking system in the main sluice.

In 2021 we struggled with water everytime that we asked for water and we have had to get Glen out everytime to assist, he has even had to give us 3 days of extra water to get our dam full. Even Desiree had to come out to this very same sluice last year, and now in 2022 we are still not allowed to get our water.

Now 10 years on isn’t it ironic that the same Vaughan Thomas who had to be contacted by Tallie Taljard of the Brits pos in 2012 to resolve the flooding is the same person who in 2022 still says he can’t help, and after I told him then I am going to take it further is the person who says “go ahead, do your worse”.

Our neighbours and their big company have intimidated us on a daily basis. Which was reported to the police, and have been posted on Hellopeter. When we had workers on the property they would threaten him with physical violence if he opened our sluice. With all this in mind, which we explained to Hennie serwig when he was still in your offices years ago, and we also told Glen Brown about, your best answer to us is to sort it out with the neighbour. The very same neighbour who *****s YOUR water, the same neighbour who YOU do not reprimand. So why would he stop *****ing our water if the Hartbee****rt irrigation board allows him to continue *****ing water. When we try to take our water then on a Tuesday, when after a full day we still did not get our dam full, your offices phone us to tell us to close our sluice immediately. But upon asking why they do not tell the neighbour to close his sluice, we are told, “he just does whatever he wants” we can’t stop him. Really!!! So what exactly are the we paying for? Or does the rules only apply to us?

And all of us know in 10 years time we will again have to send a letter as you still will not have done your job. Or should we also “do our worst” as per your advice. And isn’t is ironic that all of this can be solved by 2 locks which your fiscal can maintain or should I say which your fiscal will maintain for the hours it pleases him.