By Siyanda Zinyanga
For nine months, Ricardo Jacob, a 35-year-old resident from Ghost Town, has lived with a broken sewage pipe in his home. Human waste flows freely in his yard, soaking the ground and causing an overpowering smell that makes it difficult to breathe. Even eating is unbearable. Mind you, his fridge is empty.
Despite frequent visits to the municipality to complain about the broken sewage at his home, not a single official has followed up, and no maintenance team has ever inspected or fixed the broken sewage pipes. Jacobs is a father to three children. His 11-year-old daughter, in grade 5, lives with asthma — a common disease, according to the health section of the Makana Municipality Integrated Development Draft of 2023/2024.
In Makana’s second edition Draft Integrated Development Plan of 2022-2027, their IDP assessment rating on the Key Performance Area from 2022/2023 indicates that the KPA 2 for service delivery and infrastructure planning is rated high. In its operating expenditure framework draft for 2025/2026, more than R15 million has been allocated for Repairs and Maintenance.
On Makana Municipality’s website, a slogan declares that “Every Drop Counts”. Yet when you click on the ‘water crisis’ and ‘residents’ buttons, there is no information there regarding the water crisis in Makhanda — a violation of Act No. 2 of 2000, which promotes access to information.
“Tell Mr Ramaphosa we are suffering down here. I vote for Ramaphosa, where’s he?” According to Jacob, he relies on side hustles and the children’s social grants to put food on the table. He said he would have called private companies by now if he had money.
The average response for sewage complaints in South Africa is not standardised and can vary between municipalities. For example, Drakenstein Municipality requires such complaints to be dealt with within 10 working days. According to our research, Makana Municipality does not appear to have a performance management framework — as mandated by the Local Government Act. Failing to deliver service means Makana Municipality has breached Section 152 (1)(b) of the South African Constitution, which states that one of the objects of local government is to ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner.
To find out how the leaking sewage and water pipes are being dealt with, Grocott’s contacted the councillor for Ghost Town, Andile Hoyi, on 20 May. Hoyi refused to comment and referred us to the manager of water affairs, Chris Qwane. Qwane dropped the call as soon as he was told that he was speaking to Grocott’s Mail. On the same day we contacted Hoyi, we also sent him questions to respond to. Grocott’s Mail will continue to reach out to the authorities. In the meantime, Jacob noted that he has tried to fix the matter several times by himself but has failed, as he is not an expert on repairing broken sewerage pipes.
On the morning before Grocott’s journalists visited Ghost Town, a man was stabbed and killed in the street during a robbery. “I’m finished with the ANC,” Jacob said.
He said a water leak at his neighbour’s house has been leaking for three years. Grocott’s reporters found that a five-litre bucket gets filled every three minutes. With that in mind, we were able to estimate that approximately 2,633,256 litres of clean water have gone to waste over the past three years. This amount of water can fill over 52,665 bathtubs of 50 litres.
Jacobs said that he was born and bred in Ghost Town, but he believes that if his grandmother rose from the dead, she would choose death again, as she would be ashamed of what the place has turned into.
