Friends drove down to the Eastern Cape recently and travelled through some of its truly beautiful mountain passes.
They noted that the commercial farms looked lush, abundant, and neat. But the rural towns and villages looked terrible. Most have them have fallen into complete disrepair and some looked like they’d been demolished. Some have no real shops apart from spaza shops and hawkers.
Having driven through the same area a few years ago, I found it an incredibly depressing sight. The signs of African National Congress (ANC) ‘governance’ are truly miserable to behold.
The most egregious signs of misgovernance and incompetence are to be found in the crisis facing many towns over the provision of water.
South Africa is a water-scarce country and we can never take the availability or quality of water for granted. But the situation in which the government has left many communities is scandalous.
The most recent case is Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown). As of 22 February the town had been without water for six days, and not for the first time. According to the Daily Maverick, after a series of smaller failures in January, the James Kleynhans Water Treatment Works pump station in Makhanda failed when its power station was flooded because a gasket blew.
The municipality’s comment? ‘Our team tried by all means to save the situation, but unfortunately could not win.’ Since the beginning of January, problems have occurred at both the James Kleynhans and the Waainek water treatment works.
A year ago the Makhanda High Court ruled that the Makana Municipal Council, the municipality under which Makhanda falls, had to be dissolved for its unconstitutional failure to deliver services to the community. The municipality and the Provincial Government have appealed against the ruling.
And as is becoming distressingly familiar, help came not from any level of government, but from Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman’s Gift of the Givers which provided water trucks. Sooliman said his organisation had received a number of emergency calls from the town.
‘The calls are pouring in from Makhanda. Gift of the Givers staff have to silence their phones temporarily to give their mental state a breather. There is desperation everywhere. People are in a panic,’ says Sooliman. “What is happening with the water is a terrible thing,” he added. And Sooliman knows whereof he speaks.
An article in GroundUp noted that from 24 to 27 November 2020, in Ngqushwa, also in the Eastern Cape, Sooliman’s organisation drilled four boreholes and offered to clean up four existing boreholes which were no longer producing water.
The Amathole District Municipality (which Ngqushwa falls under) had apparently done a survey of borehole sites in the area, but none proved suitable for drinking water.
When the GroundUp article was written in early December 2020 the water quality has not yet been tested, but Sooliman was confident of its quality.
Ngqushwa (also known as Peddie) has about 138 villages, which have been struggling with water scarcity for ten years. Some have had to rely on dirty water from the river or buying water from local trucks. Taps were installed but have been dry for nine years.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, young villagers embarked upon protests, blocking the N2 and a road close to the local clinic with burning tyres, demanding clean water.
After the protest a water tank was installed for three villages, but Amathole only filled the tank twice a month and within three hours it was empty. Spokesperson for the municipality, Nonceba Madikizela-Vuso, said the district was vast and the roads were bad, and tankers constantly needed repair.
Resident Nosolomzi Bhudaza said ‘I’m unemployed and dependent on the child support grant of my grandchildren. I cannot afford to buy water, so this borehole will help people like me to fetch water closer than we used to.’
Sipho Majiya, who is disabled and relies on crutches, said: ‘At least now I can go fetch my own water … The river is about 7km away and the road is bad. I had to rely on people for water. The trucks charge R20 for a 25 litre bucket.’
Deputy Minister of Human settlements, Water and Sanitation, Pam Tshwete, was present at the drilling. ‘Gift of the Givers has drilled boreholes close to where people live. There were taps here that have gone dry. We would like to use these boreholes to supply those taps,’ she said.
Asked why the Givers had been able to drill boreholes when the municipality apparently had not, Madikizela-Vuso said a geohydrologist had visited 30 existing borehole sites, but only seven had been found suitable to be tested. ‘The ones which were tested yielded water which was not fit for human consumption,’ she said. ‘Owing to issues of water quality, we did not equip any of the boreholes, even those which did have sufficient water.’
‘In this regard it should be noted that we have not received water quality results from Gift of the Givers as yet.’ A tad churlish in the circumstances?
The Givers’ geologist proved that the aquifers were ‘high-yielding groundwater resources with the potential to alleviate the water woes of several communities in the Ngqushwa Local Municipality’.
It cost between R350 000 and R600 000 to drill one borehole, depending on the depth.
Athini Ngxumza of Fixing Ingqushwa Yethu (Fixing Our Ngqushwa) said people were happy with the intervention of the Givers but much still needed to be done. ‘And what is sad about this is that Amathole District Municipality is quiet. This is the first step, now Amathole District Municipality should start fixing the pipes, and we can only hope that the water is clean to be used by people.’
Sooliman gave a daring interview on his experiences on an interview on eNCA with Sally Burdett on 17 September 2020.
Burdett asked him about his considerable experience of helping drought-stricken communities when government appeared to be missing in action.
Visibly angry, he demanded to know where the government, the municipalities, and the Department of Water Affairs were.
Sooliman said that Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, whom he had spoken to on many occasions, was keen to support the Givers. She said, however, that she had inherited a crisis from her predecessor* with money being stolen or earmarked to pay electricity and other accounts.
Sooliman said bluntly that government doesn’t understand the words ‘urgency, emergency and disaster’. Certain areas hadn’t received help 6 or 7 months into the drought. The Givers had been ‘flooded’ with calls from all over the Eastern Cape. The Givers had delivered water, food, fodder, and PPE equipment.
Sooliman had seen people who had had to resort to eating cats, dogs and tortoises in the Graaff Reinet District. In Klipplaat in particular, they saw hunger, no water, unemployment, and drug abuse.
In one area the Givers provided 1 400 food parcels and a drilling machine. They drilled one new and two existing boreholes, receiving absolutely no assistance from the local municipality. They used money from their reserves. They also supplied 650 truckloads of fodder and 450 train carriage loads.
Carte Blanche on Sunday 21 February did a feature on how members of the Kgetlengrivier Concerned Citizens in Koster obtained a court order to run their water and sewerage services.
Drinking quality water and working sewerage works were up and running 6 weeks later. One resident said he was happy not to have to wear gumboots to walk through the sewage in the streets.
Can the rot only be arrested by the private sector?
*Sisulu’s predecessor was the inimitably corrupt and incompetent Nomvula Mokonyane.
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