The irate residents of Palmview in Phoenix are calling for urgent intervention to the raw sewage overflow on Nettlepalm Place, which has forced them to “live under unhygienic conditions for the past two years”.
One of the affected residents, Shineen Singh told the Phoenix Tabloid that the situation was recently made worse by the theft of copper pipes which caused the overflow to come into their yards.
She said: “We had sewage coming into our yards and had no water to even clean it because the copper pipes were stolen and we had to shut the water main. The guys that came to sort out the copper pipes could not do so because of the state of the yard and the raw sewage in the yard.”
Singh said the raw sewage overflow is now affecting their health as some of the elderly residents are constantly getting sick from the unbearable smell.
She said: “The sewage is causing so much of backlog into our toilets that we are continuously flushing and it’s increasing our water bills. Most of the residents in the area are pensioners and cannot afford to pay exorbitant amounts for their water bills due to the sewer issue. We have communicated this with the municipality time and time again, yet nothing is getting done. The least they could do is to come out twice a week and have the road cleaned up. It’s not fair that we are paying to clean up the raw sewage every week as ratepayers and still have to pay for the increasing light and water bills.”
“I remember requesting for the guys from the municipality to clean the road when they came out, just so we could travel as it was heavily messed. They turned around and said, ‘that’s not our job, it’s your home and you should clean it yourself’. So my question for the municipality is, do we pay for our rates or do we clean this mess?,” questioned the irate resident.
Another resident, Mahadeo Lalman, 69, was injured as he attempted to come out of his house to go to the shops. “I sprained my ankle and damaged my knee as I tried to jump over the sewage which runs across my driveway. I had no choice but to jump over as if not, I would have messed my shoes with raw sewage. I have not fully recovered from the injury and walking with the aid of a stick. My wife and are elderly and sickly. We cannot bare with the smell which has been making us more sick lately. We can’t even eat our food with the horrible stench. This is a serious health hazard for the residents around here,” said Lalman.
The ward councillor for the area, Lyndal Singh said that the residents have been suffering with this issue for the past two years with little to no response from council. She said: “In December 2022 and January 2023, I was liaising with council and there seemed to be very little to no response, while residents endured the stink and unhygienic conditions for months on end. I then held a meeting with residents and decided that we will go to the officials as they were not prepared to come to the area after numerous attempts to get them here. During the time, I also posed questions to council during a full council sitting and they were going to revert back to me within a week. The issue was subsequently dealt with, however six months down the line, residents are sitting with the same problem again.”
Cllr Singh said the pump station is non-functional and that should be the priority, not unclogging the manhole only for the problem to persist a few months later.
She said: “As a result of the non-functional pump station, the sewage is coming up into the residents toilets, homes, yards and manholes. A number of residents have been falling sick due to the conditions they are being forced to live in which is unacceptable. I’ve escalated this matter to the city manager, the deputy city manager and our exco members are also taking this up. You cannot expect anybody to live continuously in such inhumane conditions.”
“Although I’m following up on this on a daily basis, I’ve received no communication from the municipality, neither have the residents who have also taken this up. The lack of communication is a blatant disregard for the plight of these residents. Surely the community and rate payers shouldn’t be crying out to municipality to be attending to critical issues such as this for a prolonged period. This should have been dealt with as a matter of priority and I shouldn’t have to pose questions in council for them to do their job,” added Cllr Singh.
EThekwini Municipality spokesperson Gugu Sisilana said: “There was an issue with Nettlepalm pump station where it was malfunctioning due to a lack of inflow into the pump station. The blockage crews managed to locate the source of the blockage and resolved it. The pump station is currently receiving flow and the blockages along Nettlepalm have been resolved. The pump station will continue to be monitored. The City continues to ask that residents desist from disposing of foreign materials into our sanitation system as this causes blockages as our system is not built to handle materials such as nappies and sanitary towels among other items.
