Poor security at key water sources allowed vandals to cause damage that left around 40 000 Grahamstown residents without water for two days last week.
Poor security at key water sources allowed vandals to cause damage that left around 40 000 Grahamstown residents without water for two days last week.
But in following this story, Grocott's Mail found this was hardly anything new for Joza. For three years, some of the township's residents have had little or no tap-water during the day.
Commenting last week on vandalism to major supply pipes, stopping the water supply to Grahamstown East for two days, municipal spokesperson Mncedisi Boma said members of the community needed to be taught how important the city's infrastructure was to people's well-being.
“We have people who do round checks every day at our water sources, but we don't have a night security guard. We think that an education programme is needed for our people to understand that what you vandalise is needed by the community,” he said.
Pensioner Mavis Nkani told Grocott's Mail that since 2010 she and other Joza residents had been forced to queue with buckets outside the community hall, and had to fill them up at night when there was water flowing from their taps.
"Some people leave their taps open throughout the night because they don't realise the water has come back," said Nkani, 64.
She said she and other residents had no idea what was behind the water outages. "They tell us that the pipes are broken – but if that is the case, why does the water come out at night?" Nkani asked.
Another Joza resident, Lindiwe Mgole, said the water from the tanks was dirty. "My three-year old has to drink this water.
The worst thing is that when the hall is locked, we can't get any water," she said. Mgole said she'd had a shower installed at her house, but that she'd hardly used it because the water was so unreliable.
"It is just a decoration at my house."
Makana's Technical and Infrastructure services director Thembinkosi Myalato, meanwhile dismissed claims by some residents that the reservoir in Tantyi was not operational.
“I commissioned it myself when I arrived here, so the fact that it is not connected is the thing of the past. The problem there was pressure and the water was dirty, so we cleaned it and fixed the problem,” he said.
Myalato said they were aware of water problems in Nompondo Street, in Joza. “It is two areas – Nompondo and part of Vukani," he said.
"The issue there is the pressure, so we are going to attend to the problem by repairing the elevated tank that is in Joza.
We are in the process of getting a structural engineer to assess the tank so that it can help these two areas,” said Myalato. Boma said the municipality would soon run an awareness programme about water demand.
