Water crises in Makana have become such a frequent occurrence that they’ve almost become an integral part of our daily lives. Until recently Makana Municipality usually blamed water cuts on the ageing infrastructure, but assured us they were ‘doing everything in our power to fix the problem’.
Water crises in Makana have become such a frequent occurrence that they’ve almost become an integral part of our daily lives. Until recently Makana Municipality usually blamed water cuts on the ageing infrastructure, but assured us they were ‘doing everything in our power to fix the problem’.
The new excuse is ‘we are experiencing technical problems’.
It seems that a recent exodus of engineers in the infrastructure and engineering services department has a lot to do with the water outages. This week no one from the municipality, even the spokesperson of the institution, was able to explain in detail why some people have been without water for almost a month.
After several attempts to get clarification from officials and communication officers, Grocott’s Mail’s municipal affairs reporter met with the municipal manager who said, "We are currently experiencing technical problems and will try to fix them much earlier than expected."
Trying to get answers from the director of infrastructure and engineering services proved just as fruitless, as he too couldn’t give this newspaper a proper explanation either. We understand he is currently under a lot of pressure, but instead of apologising for the fact that some people have had no water for two weeks, he became irritable and brushed us off. "Don’t tell me about the people in the township," he said, "give me a specific area where there is no water."
A visit to Joza location on Tuesday made it clear that people’s suffering is reaching new heights. They are very frustrated and have nobody to represent them in Council, no voice.
It’s very important for a local government institution to treat everybody equally. If the infrastructure director does not appear to regard the people in Grahamstown East as important as residents from the west of town, what does this say about him or the institution he works for?
The mere courtesy of informing people in the townships that "we are experiencing technical problems" would mean a lot to them.
Is Makana Municipality not tired of receiving petitions from residents about the water cuts every few months?
The issue here is not that the municipality doesn’t deliver services to the people, but it is the poor quality of the services we are expected to accept as ‘service delivery’.
The municipality complains that this newspaper only publishes negative news about the institution. Deliver quality services and you will see us singing your praises.
