President Zuma opened the R3.4 billion De Hoop Dam on the Steelpoort River in 2014. It filled. The Nebo bulk-water scheme meant to carry its water to the villages of the Sekhukhune plateau did not. In 2017, represented by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, residents of Elandskraal, Morarela, Mbuzini, Dichoeng and Tsantsabela obtained a High Court order requiring Sekhukhune District Municipality, the Water Services Authority, to deliver reliable water pending a permanent solution.
By August 2020 they were back in court seeking contempt findings and the arrest of the acting municipal manager, who called the application "a deliberate attempt to embarrass the municipality" while conceding non-compliance: "Neither my predecessor nor I intended to behave contemptuously towards this court." The municipal manager, Norah Maseko, had been suspended in 2019 over an R67 million irregular sanitation contract.
Parliamentary replies chart the scheme: "83% complete" in October 2019, then a Phase 1 pipeline vandalised before it was commissioned, contracts terminated for poor performance, and in March 2025 a promise of full supply by December 2026 — twelve years after the dam filled. The case sits with Giyani and Vhembe as the third Limpopo water scheme in this archive where the infrastructure exists and the water does not arrive.