Water outages are nothing new particularly in Grahamstown east, but when the Grocott's Mail newsroom received word on Friday morning that the situation in some parts of the township was serious, Loyiso Dyongman and Steven Lang went to investigate.
Water outages are nothing new particularly in Grahamstown east, but when the Grocott's Mail newsroom received word on Friday morning that the situation in some parts of the township was serious, Loyiso Dyongman and Steven Lang went to investigate.
Taps in certain parts of Grahamstown ran dry yet again last week. Residents complain that they did not have running water for at least two consecutive days and the municipality did not warn them or provide any explanation for the cuts.
We found Joza residents with empty buckets and plastic containers queueing up behind a truck parked in front of Noluthando Hall. The truck, one of two currently deployed by the municipality to supply water to residents, was dispensing water to all those who had come to fill their buckets.
While waiting patiently for their turn to fill up, residents explained how their water supplies had been cut off the previous day and by mid-morning on Friday had still not been restored. They said their children could not go to school on that day because there was no water for a bath.
Nomisa Gomfana said that they are now back to the bucket system in Joza because they cannot flush their toilets. She was also unhappy about the quality of the water provided by the municipality in the water tanker, "This water is dirty, it's not 100 percent clean. We have to fill lots of buckets with this dirty water and when we use that water after days in that bucket it's already old."
Thembinkosi Dibela who also lives in Joza was just as annoyed with the water outage and explained how he and his family have to use the water from the truck: "This water we are collecting now will be used for many things like we going to do washing and then use it to flush toilets."
Another Joza resident Phumeza Gabhayi said: The municipality must make a way of rectifying this because we voted for them. They want us to think of the old days now and say it was better during that period. The worst part of it is that we cannot go to toilet now.
In Extension 9 the situation was somewhat better as residents had at least some water even though the flow was not very strong.
Eunice Magopheni, who lives in Extension 9 complained that the municipality had not spoken to the residents about the latest crisis, but noted that this situation was not unusual in that area. Kholeka Ncanywa from Ncede Street in Extension 9 said the water came back later on Friday morning but the pressure was low and the quality was poor.
Makana municipality councillor Brian Fargher who was on the scene in front of Noluthando Hall to assess the situation, said that the water outage was due to an Eskom power problem that affected the pumps bringing water from the James Kleynhans purification works to Grahamstown East.
Municipal spokesperson Thandy Matebese said: "The reason for this is that Eskom is doing some work on the power lines at James Kleynhans and James Kleynhans pumps water that supports Grahamstown, especially the east side."
