By ‘Majirata Latela
A Ha Pita villager, just outside the city of Maseru, ‘Marethabile Masiu, is in pain after her seven-roomed house was damaged and remains unrepaired since the construction of the road passing through her area.
Added to that is that she has to fork out M12 000 to service her water bill after a water pipe burst in her yard during the construction of the Lekhaloaneng-Ha Pita road.
Matekane Group of Companies (MGC) was awarded a tender to rehabilitate the 7.5km tarred road by the Maseru City Council (MCC) in 2016.
The road development project was to begin that year and expected to be completed in June 2017 but it was only completed in April 2019.
The water pipe was damaged in 2017 during the repair of another main water pipe which had been tampered with during the road construction.
Masiu’s house lies about a metre from the road. She claims she pleaded with the contractor to build her a wall fence to shield her house form possible cracks, but her plea fell on deaf ears
During this publication’s visit to Masiu’s home this week, the cracks on her home were very much visible and hard to miss.
She says in 2016 an unnamed officer from MGC informed the community of the development that would eat into her yard “but there would not be any compensation for the loss.” She agreed as she was promised restoration of everything to its original position.
To her dismay, her septic tank and latrine were not restored to their original condition, sparking fury.
“When construction started, there was a septic tank and toilet in the yard. The construction covered the septic tank and transferred the toiled. They only dug a small pit for the toilet which is not built with bricks like before.
“I complained to the construction workers who were on site. In turn they referred me to their superior. I consulted his office regularly but all did not go well until the completion of works. Later on, I was then told to contact the MGC office to lay a complaint.
“It was during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown when I went to MGC offices. I only met Ntate Makotoko Moshe. Because of the Covid-19 restrictions at that time, he came out to meet me at the packing lot. I tabled my complaint and he made a phone call after before he told me us to write a letter to the Lithoteng local councillor,” a tormented Masiu said.
She wrote to the councillor but he told her to hand it to the city council. She has since never heard from the city council or MGC.
She was informed of the damage to the house and to a water pipe by the tenant renting the residence in 2017.
“It was around 5:00pm when I got a call to rush to the place. When I got there, there was water everywhere in the house because the water was flowing at a very high pressure. The house furniture, especially that in the lounge, was soaked.
“Neighbours came to the house to help us divert the water using soil. When the water was popping out from underground, there was some kind of tremor that could be felt from inside and outside the house. We could sense the house was cracking.
“The contractors came in to fix the water pipe but it continued to burst about three times during construction.,” she said.
“At one time, during the repair a truck got stuck in the mud. The windows were broken at the time the workers were fixing the pipe.
“I alerted the officers that my water pipe was leaking after their machinery was driven over it. On the second occasion they only fixed their distribution pipe and left mine still leaking.
Due to the damaged water pipe her bill now stands at M12 437 which she has to foot after receiving a print out from the Water and Sewage Company (WASCO).
Masiu, who has already paid a consultant M500 to quantify the costs of the damage to her property, is pleading with all responsible to come to her aid.
Masiu is pleading with those who are responsible to fix her house. She says since she is renting the rooms in the house, she is currently unable to rent some of the rooms because they need to be fixed first.
After being alerted to Masiu’s claims on the social media, MGC technical director, Makotoko Moshe, said he visited Masiu’s property. After some initial hesitation, Moshe admitted to meeting the complainant back in 2020 and promised that his office would peruse any files regarding Masiu’s claims.
He encouraged Masiu to contact the city council “if she felt aggrieved by the MGC.”
The MCC’s public relations manager, ‘Makatleho Mosala, said when MCC contracts a company to do any work it is the responsibility of the contractor to consider all the queries and complaints relating to such works.
On the other hand, WASCO, public relations manager, Lineo Moqasa, was unable to comment as the “issue is a technical matter requiring to be handled by those responsible.”
She advised Masiu to lay her complaint in (detailed) writing with the WASCO chief executive.
