Grahamstown experienced yet another water outage yesterday morning when two pipes burst at the corner of Oatlands Road and African Street.
Grahamstown experienced yet another water outage yesterday morning when two pipes burst at the corner of Oatlands Road and African Street.
Soon after the commotion began
He said the municipality was working to have the water valves switched back on by noon yesterday.
But water cuts are a frequent occurrence in Grahamstown, for some people even daily. “We experience outages pretty much every day.
It is very inconvenient, and I think that the municipality should fix the problem, whatever it is,” said one Bowker Street resident.
“Why is this happening so often? Are the people not qualified enough to keep up the maintenance?” Boma said the frequent outages are probably due to ageing infrastructure.
“For now we are acknowledging that we have this problem, but it has to be balanced with the municipal budget,” Boma said.
The municipality also faces the challenge of vandalism because the iron leads that connect the underground pipes are being stolen, he added.
A resident in the Kingswood area complained, “One expects water in taps when there is a functioning municipality, so it reflects badly on the town.”
In the past, the municipality would place letters in residents’ post boxes to warn them about planned water outages, but Boma said this is not always easy to do as some pipes burst unexpectedly.
In an attempt to improve communication between the municipality and the public, the Makana council has organised a slot on Radio Grahamstown every Tuesday from 11am-11.30am to give them a chance to speak and answer people's questions.
