MPE DELIVERS: SESHEGO'S TAPS FLOW AGAIN AS MAYOR TURNS PROMISE INTO WATER

Mpho Dube
10 hours ago
3 min read

BREAKING THE THIRST: MAYOR MPE TURNS R234 MILLION PROMISE INTO WATER FOR 91,500 PEOPLE IN SESHEGO

RE AGA POLOKWANE — WE ARE BUILDING: Executive Mayor John Mpe addresses the handover ceremony at Seshego. "Water is life. Infrastructure is the bridge," said the Mayor who turned a R202.1 million national grant and R32 million of municipal funds into water security.

By Mpho Dube, Editor-in-Chief

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Seshego — History did not flow in speeches today. It flowed in water.

After years of dry taps, empty buckets and broken promises, Seshego has its permanent answer — and it carries one name on its pipes, its pumps and its progress: Executive Mayor of Polokwane, Cllr Makoro John Mpe.

This is what decisive leadership looks like. While others were still debating the water crisis on podiums, Mayor Mpe was building the solution underground, brick by brick, pipe by pipe.

Today, that solution roared to life as the Seshego Water Treatment Plant was officially opened and handed over by Minister of Water and Sanitation Pemmy Majodina.

The full might of government came to Seshego not to launch a plan, but to celebrate a Mayor who DELIVERS. MEC for Treasury Kgabo Mahoai representing the Premier, Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation David Mahlobo, Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance Dr Namane Dickson Masemola, and MEC for COGHSTA Pule Shai all stood on a stage that was built by Polokwane's own determination.

This is the magnitude of what Mayor Mpe has delivered for his people. A state-of-the-art plant with a design capacity of 10 megalitres per day, injecting between 8 and 10 MILLION litres of clean, treated water into the municipal system every single day. That is not a technical figure. That is dignity for 91,500 people in Seshego and surrounding areas who will now open their taps and find life flowing.

This victory was not accidental. It was engineered by leadership. Construction began in November 2019, reached practical completion in June 2023, and was officially commissioned in May 2024. Through every delay, every budget cycle and every challenge, Mayor Mpe refused to let Seshego thirst. While others talk, Mpe builds.

THE DEALMAKERS: Mayor John Mpe in a focused discussion with Minister Pemmy Majodina during the official handover. It was Mpe's lobbying that secured the R202.155 million RBIG funding and his oversight that delivered the project from November 2019 to commissioning in May 2024.

And the investment tells its own story of good governance under Mpe. A total construction cost of R234.156 million, made up of R202.155 million from the Regional Bulk Infrastructure Grant (RBIG) which the Mayor lobbied for and secured from national government, and R32.001 million of the City's own municipal funding. Thirty-two million rand of Polokwane's own money — because under Mayor John Mpe, Polokwane puts its money where its people are.

For too long, Seshego's water challenges were used as a political football. Mayor Mpe made it a personal priority. He lobbied, he secured the national funding, he oversaw the construction, he ensured accountability, and today he handed over water security to his people.

This is not just a treatment plant. It is a bridge between promise and delivery. It is proof that when you have a Mayor who understands that water is life and infrastructure is the bridge, that bridge gets built firmly in the ground.

Minister Majodina may have cut the ribbon, but Mayor Mpe built the road to it. Water is life. In Seshego today, Mayor Mpe delivered life.