By Bongekile Gumede
Residents of Sheringham Road in Overport were hopeful on Monday morning, 11 July, when the Ward 31 Councillor, Remona Mckenzie, attended to an ongoing sewer blockage that has affected the residents for over two months.
Cllr Mckenzie said she is greatly concerned about the continuously overflowing sewer systems that have plagued residents and businesses in her ward.
“This has been a longstanding issue over the past years, even experienced with previous ward councillors in Ward 31. Despite numerous interventions by myself as the councillor and calls for the sewer system in Sheringham Road, Overport, to be addressed, the area still remains in a state. This issue remains for more than two months now and there has been constant unfulfilled promises of when the issue will be resolved, causing a health hazard to the residents.
“Residents have had to endure sewage flooding into their homes. It is a daily occurrence that residents have to drive and walk through raw sewage. Residents cannot open their windows because of the stench. This is serious and is unacceptable. No person should have to live under these circumstances,” said Cllr Mckenzie.
She said the relevant department needs to find a permanent solution by maintaining and cleaning sewer systems, not a temporary fix.
“A technical team was supposed to come out to address this issue and since then I have had no feedback. Residents and businesses want proper service delivery for the services they pay for. Currently, they are paying for services they are not receiving. Proper service delivery needs to be implemented and should be a priority for the city. Residents expect their living conditions to be up to acceptable health standards,” said Cllr Mckenzie.
The residents of Sheringham Road, who came out on Monday morning to meet with the councillor, said that since the April floods the manhole on the corner of Hope Street and Sheringham Road has been overflowing and that teams from eThekwini Municipality have been to the site, however, the problem was not fixed. They further said it seems as if there is a blockage in the entire system and now the sewage is back-flushing into their home systems, resulting in blockage of their ablution facilities.
Raw faeces and a terrible stench has forced residents and motorists to close the doors and windows of their homes and cars, especially on windy days, with masses of mosquitoes and flies having a field day near the manholes. One of the residents said: “I have had several visits to the doctor, ever since this issue started.”
Another resident said: “One day, a car was stuck in the manhole on Hill Street. This is really becoming a problem as residents can’t even walk comfortably on the streets without fearing being splashed with faeces by motorists driving down Sheringham Road.”
The residents have since blocked the erupting manholes with black bin-bags and other materials to lessen the overflow. Another resident, Nizam Adams, said: “A TLB was on site, digging on one of the properties, trying to find the cause of the problem. However, as it is today, it seems that they could not find it.”
While still on-site, the councillor went around with some of the residents who showed her another manhole on Hill Street which is also blocked and is covered with a car part and a piece of wood after its lid came off as a result of an overflow. “The lid was stolen by scrap metal collectors after it came off as a result of the pressure from the sewer line blockage,” said a resident.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Sheringham Road, just below Al Ansaar, Cllr Mckenzie was asked to report a water leak which has been continuously flowing for almost two years. She said she would be reporting to the department and would be requesting for a team to be sent out as soon as possible.
Cllr Mckenzie said that other issues in the area are that of illegal land occupation and illegal dumping. During the site visit, Cllr Mckenzie and the Springfield Weekly Gazette witnessed informal residents, who illegally occupy a plot along Sheringham Road, dragging an old mattress and illegally dumping it on the plot of land which is unoccupied.
Cllr Mckenzie said that illegal dumping and illegal occupation of land needs urgent attention and called for property owners to report this to her and the municipality so that the law takes its course.
“I believe that the municipality should enforce laws when it comes to these two issues. If illegal dumpers are reported by the community and are given fines, we will see less of the problem in our ward. With regard to the illegal occupancy, land owners should report this or rather get authorisation to remove the people from their properties as they are also adding to the filthy state of our ward,” said Cllr Mckenzie.
She urged residents to report other issues in the ward by sending her a WhatsApp message on 081-041-5404.
EThekwini Municipality Spokesperson, Msawakhe Mayisela, said: “It should be noted that the city will never win the war against clogging of manholes unless residents change their behaviour. Over 70% of manholes that are clogged are because of alien objects disposed of in our systems and these incidents are no exception. We attend to such leaks on numerous occasions and as soon we turn our back, we go back to square one.
“We are therefore appealing to residents to refrain from using newspapers in their toilets and to stop the disposal of items such as tampons, condoms, diapers and oil in our system. These are all the things that our teams are always retrieving in the event of attending to clogged manholes.”
Mayisela said the community itself must do their part or this will continue to be a moving target for the city. “Teams were dispatched to investigate and will be attending to the matter,” said Mayisela.
