By Staff Reporter
Service delivery challenges, particularly the recent water crisis, are set to take centre stage at two gatherings planned for Makhanda today.
The Makana Citizens Front (MCF) led by Lungile Mxube invites its members and ordinary residents to a meeting at the Recreation Hall in Albany Road this afternoon at 2pm.
Mxube told Grocott’s Mail this morning that the meeting would focus on “the great water disaster and water crisis”.
“We’ve been sitting with this problem for the past 14 years. We want to make our people and communities that you cannot solve a 14-year-old problem within three to four hours.”
He added: “We have decided to convene this public meeting so that we can make the communities aware about the root cause of the serious water crisis in Makana.”
Two hours after the MCF meeting, the Makana Municipality is scheduled to host a stakeholder engagement session at City Hall.
“The Makana Local Municipality invites local stakeholders to a service delivery-related stakeholder engagement session,” the embattled institution says in a statement.
The meeting is set for 4pm at City Hall.
The community gatherings come a week or so after residents of Makhanda suffered a devastating water crisis which saw Rhodes University suspending academic programmes before marching to the City Hall.
Civic organisations, the Unemployed Peoples Movement (UPM) and the other Makana Citizens Front (MCF), led by Lungisa Sixaba and other councillors, also took to the streets, giving Makana Municipality leadership 14 days to respond to their service delivery grievances.
Makhanda has been battling with water demand exceeding supply, ageing infrastructure, excessive leaks, and pipe bursts, which have resulted in major water losses.
As a result, the town has been on a water rationing system, with sections closed off at night to ensure that reservoirs recharge.
However, the situation was exacerbated recently when cuts to overtime resulted in workers not working overtime from 23 August, which led to the collapse of the supply system and the inability to supply water to many areas.
The disaster prompted the intervention of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Zolile Williams who arrived in Makhanda last week and held meetings with municipal management, councillors and ratepayers’ associations.
Williams undertook to put in place immediate measures to help manage the water crisis, including deploying a civil engineer to stop water leaks, automating the operation of reservoirs and ramping up revenue collection.
Meanwhile, in a statement on Sunday this week, DA ward councillor Geoff Embling indicated that national Cogta minister Velenkosini Hlabisa would be visiting Makhanda this week, along with the Director General and the provincial MEC of Finance.
In another statement, Embling pointed to a two-prong approach to implementing Makana’s recovery.
• Makana has two primary concerns which cannot be separated, namely finance, and infrastructure.
• Makana urgently needs a qualified civil engineer to assess infrastructure maintenance, water leaks, and other requirements. The MEC’s appointment of a highly-ranked engineer is most welcome.
• Secondly, there is a “cold war” between the CFO and the various infrastructure departments, water & sewage, electrical, and roads. At every infrastructure portfolio meeting, management complains bitterly of an unfunded budget, whereby money meant for repair and maintenance is not released to the departments.
• Furthermore, the CFO withheld overtime pay to essential workers, who marched to the finance department in protest. Some workers proceeded to strike and sabotage infrastructure, which led to a severe water crisis. This was predictable and it could have been avoided, because a similar strike occurred previously after council placed a moratorium on overtime.
• The root cause of the problem seems to be financial. To date, the CFO has denied that the budget is unfunded, claiming that it is Municipal Standard Chart of Accounts (mSCOA) compliant. On 4 September 2024, a team from the National Treasury visited the City Hall and explained to council that although Makana’s budget may seem to be mSCOA compliant, it is in fact unfunded.
• Makana urgently requires financial intervention, to rework the budget. Council has been warned about Makana’s unfunded budget on several occasions, yet the Budget Steering Committee and the Finance Committee have not had the will, nor the capacity, to rectify it.
