Residents from Mdantsane’s NU3 and Zimele informal settlement are living alongside gushing taps as the municipality continues to ignore pleas to fix the leaks.
The informal settlement just outside NU4 was sharing two taps between 100 plus households but they closed one as they could no longer endure the combined outflow of two leaking taps as the water was starting to soak into their shacks.
The community said they had reported the tap leakage as far back as August last year but nothing had been done.
When the Daily Dispatch visited the area the water was gushing from the remaining tap.
Zoleka Witi, who lives just a few metres away, said she was one of the group that went to the municipal office to report the leaking taps.
“We have been reporting these taps. Even when the one we opted to close was still working we had made the municipality aware. We closed the other tap because we were tired of living in water and besides this is just a waste of clean water,” said Witi.
When Buffalo City last year announced its ambitious campaign to end water leaks, the city injected more than R40-million to help deal with the crisis.
In 2017, President Jacob Zuma launched the “War on Water Leaks” project in Port Elizabeth, a project to train more that 15000 youths as artisans and plumbers. It is unclear what happened to this project.
However, last year the BCM confirmed this campaign had filtered through to the BCM area as it was a national programme spearheaded by the Department of Water and Sanitation.
At the time the metro claimed to have engaged 250 volunteers to provide much-needed capacity at grassroots level to repair leaks.
BCM had not responded to a request for comment by deadline on Friday. — simthandilef@dispatch.co.za
Mdantsane water leaks concern
The informal settlement just outside NU4 was sharing two taps between 100 plus households but they closed one as they could no longer endure the combined outflow of two leaking taps as the water was starting to soak into their shacks.
The community said they had reported the tap leakage as far back as August last year but nothing had been done.
When the Daily Dispatch visited the area the water was gushing from the remaining tap.
Zoleka Witi, who lives just a few metres away, said she was one of the group that went to the municipal office to report the leaking taps.
“We have been reporting these taps. Even when the one we opted to close was still working we had made the municipality aware. We closed the other tap because we were tired of living in water and besides this is just a waste of clean water,” said Witi.
When Buffalo City last year announced its ambitious campaign to end water leaks, the city injected more than R40-million to help deal with the crisis.
In 2017, President Jacob Zuma launched the “War on Water Leaks” project in Port Elizabeth, a project to train more that 15000 youths as artisans and plumbers. It is unclear what happened to this project.
However, last year the BCM confirmed this campaign had filtered through to the BCM area as it was a national programme spearheaded by the Department of Water and Sanitation.
At the time the metro claimed to have engaged 250 volunteers to provide much-needed capacity at grassroots level to repair leaks.
BCM had not responded to a request for comment by deadline on Friday. — simthandilef@dispatch.co.za
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