General News
Siwendu said she asked her neighbour for help as she was waiting for the boys she had hired to come back from the stream. She said the boys were running late because it was month-end and a lot of people had sought their service.
“She [the neighbour] has a water tank but I always try not to bother her because I know water is very expensive. She spends more than R1,000 to fill the tank.”
Siwendu said she didn’t know why water was no longer coming from the taps.
In neighbouring Madlaleni village, Nosamkelo Msizana said taps in the village had been dry “for years”.
“The sad part is that there are old people who aren’t able to come fetch water here, they rely on people that they hire,” said Msizana.
But she said the young people who carted water were not careful about where they got it.
“Those hired people fetch water in any of the streams. If they find animals they don’t wait for the water to clear, because they are chasing targets. Remember some have to walk 3km carrying two or three 20-litre buckets. Now imagine a person on chronic treatment, taking medication with this dirty water…
“The sad part is our municipality is dragging its feet in fixing this water issue.”
She said people who have water tanks pay R1,600 to a private water truck to deliver 5,000 litres of water which is “not known where it is sourced”.
Pensioner Madlamini Gijana said she pays people to fetch water for her, but when she can, she goes to the stream with her grandchildren and carry a 20-litre bucket on her head, while her grandchildren, the eldest aged seven, carry 5-litres each.
Gijana, who looks after three grandchildren and her son, who is sick, said she puts aside R250 a month from her old age state grant for water. She said her grandchildren do receive grants, which she collects as their mothers were away looking for work in Cape Town.
Community leader Nande Mathanzima said the lack of water provision also affected schools and clinics.
“When we complain we keep on hearing a lot of excuses like broken pipes, stolen pumps, or illegal connections. It is never clear,” said Mathanzima.
She said water outages started in 2007 and got worse over time.
“Then it was an on-and-off thing. Sometimes we would get water for months, then go for another month (without water), until the taps went dry.”
She said in previous years a water truck would deliver water to those who had funerals, but that had stopped.
Chris Hani district municipality spokesperson Bulelwa Ganyaza said the villages in this area faced challenges with inadequate water supply due to illegal connections. However, how people were illegally connected to the water supply, or why people connected illegally could get water from the system but others couldn’t, was not explained.
Ganyaza said the villages in this part of the Intsika Yethu local municipality were supposed to be supplied primarily by the Tsojana water treatment works, as well as three boreholes, one of which had been vandalised.
She said phase one of connecting the Wohlo area to the Tsojana line was a medium-to-long-term solution, and was underway.
Ganyaza said last week a contractor was appointed to refurbish the Tsojana water treatment works to improve water supply to 64 villages.
The Tjojana dam, located on the Ncuncuzo River, was built in 1978. – GroundUp
Villagers around Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape fetch their drinking water from streams as most homes have not had municipal water in their taps for five years.
This is despite these villages being within 5km of the Tsojana Dam and water treatment works. The problem of lacking piped water is worse for elderly people who are not physically strong enough to haul buckets of water from the streams. As a result, these pensioners spend a significant percentage of their state pension grant to pay younger people to fetch water for them.
GroundUp visited four of about 10 villages in Intsika Yethu ward 16 which borders the Tsojana Dam. In Kuwohlo village, people were washing their clothes in the streams, while others upstream were fetching water for drinking and cooking.
Livestock ownen by the same villagers, also drink in the same streams.
GroundUp met pensioner Nowethu Siwendu who was carrying a 5-litre bucket of water she sourced from her neighbour’s home. Siwendu asked for that small amount of water to make tea and take her medication as the nearest stream is 2km from her house.
While she can trust her neighbour’s mercy for small amounts, Siwendu pays local boys to fetch larger quantities for her.
“For a 20-litre bucket they charge R10, sometimes R20,” Siwendu explains.
She said she spends about R300 a month paying people to fetch water for her. This is more than 10% of her R2,180 per month older persons grant, which is her sole source of income.
