By Lloyd Govindsamy
The water crisis across the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast has driven residents to their boiling point.
That coupled with the municipality’s alleged lack of involvement and broken promises, residents say they feel like they have no other choice but to take to the streets in protest. On Monday morning, the residents of Brake Village in Tongaat blocked the Watson Highway, at the intersection, in an attempt to to make the municipality and provincial government take notice of their plight, as they have been without running water for over 50 days.
Neville Venkatsamy, a resident of Brake Village, said they have been reduced to living in an undignified manner without water and this despite them paying their rates on time. he said: “There aren’t any tankers constantly servicing the community. If we get any water at all, the tanker comes half empty and distributing dirty water.”
Venkatsamy said on average they receive two tankers per week. “This is to service 172 houses. During the day residents are at work. How are they supposed to collect the water?” he asked.
The irate resident said the municipality has failed them. “To survive as a community we need to work together. We are forced to load water at sites outside Tongaat into our personal vehicles and then fill JoJo tanks around our neighbourhood, that were sponsored by people within our community. The municipality has done anything to assist us. They haven’t even cleaned up any debris from the first floods. Our demands are simple, we need water in our taps as soon as possible. It is a basic human need. I don’t think our demands will be met anytime soon however, after our demonstration, there has been some response. We hope to have more support from the municipality as protests are not something we want to be involved in. It isn’t our nature but we had to do this as we cannot handle this unliveable situation.,” said Venkatsamy.
Another resident also facing the full brunt of the water crisis, Mark Rangasamy, said life without water is unbearable. “Tanker services in our area are almost non-existent. If we do get a tanker it’s usually half empty. I, as well as a few other residents, have been distributing water in our community. Unfortunately it is becoming too costly and time consuming.”
He said authorities need to schedule a plan and stick to it which ensures all residents get enough water for basic living. “A resident sponsored a JoJo tank for our community but it’s pointless even having it if the municipality can’t fill water in it.”
Ward 58 councillor, Geoff Pullan said he understands the frustrations of the public. “Over 50 days without water is bothersome. This is the situation all over Tongaat. One of our problems (as councillors) is getting information from officials. If they communicated with us effectively we can then get the message out to the public. I do believe there are enough pipes that are working which we can use to get water to virtually all homes, however not as effectively as the pipes we were using before.”
In response to allegations made against Pullan regarding his lack of communication with residents, Pullan said: “I am on, literally, dozens of groups. Sometimes people send me a private message which I can only get to at a certain time. I also have to visit areas to get an understanding of what is going on. I am not just sitting in the office the entire day replying to WhatsApp messages.”
He also said council’s temporary solution to distribute water is not effective. “When you’re allocated four tankers for a ward that has no water in over 10 areas, how are you supposed to ensure everyone gets water? One thing I am very grateful for is the private sponsors who are doing everything they can to ensure our people get water. If they hadn’t, we would not be able to supply the ward with enough water at all.”
The eThekwini Municipality did not provide a comment by the time of going to print.
