Grieving residents want dam walled
FED-UP residents are demanding that the Buffalo City Metro erect a high security wall around Mzonyana dam, which has claimed the lives of more than 10 children over the years.
“Enough is enough, we need a donken [prefabricated concrete slats] wall,” said ward 5 councillor Zandisile Tokwe on behalf of her constituents.
Tokwe claimed that over the years, more than 10 children from Scenery Park had drowned.
Access to the dam, which is where the metro conducts its water treatment works, is not restricted.
Concrete pillars are the only proof there was once fencing around the dam.
Prompted by the death of a 12-yearold boy who drowned last month, Tokwe has taken the matter to the council as a matter of public importance and urgency, calling for the metro to erect a high security wall to secure the dam.
“Scenery Park was established in 1992. We requested that the municipality should they did.
“But over the years the fence was stolen and children have been drowning all these years,” Tokwe said.
“Our children are dying and one life that is lost is one too many.
“That dam is supposed to be a good thing in our community as it serves so many areas with water but we are crying.
“It’s posing a danger in our community because once the sun is hot, children don’t know any better but they go there thinking they are cooling off and some never make it back.”
A distraught Nosipho Gellem, 44, could not hold back her tears when she told the Daily Dispatch of how her 12-year-old son Ovayo Gellem died in the dam last month.
“This still makes me cry. I never thought I would bury my child so young.”
Ovayo drowned when he and 11 other boys went for a swim in the dam on February 10. His body was only recovered the following day. He was buried on February 25. fence the dam and
“He was a sweet boy doing Grade 6 at school. One of his friends said he tried to save him but apparently he told him he was losing the battle, and vanished in the water,” Gellem said.
“I’m not the only mother who has lost my child in that dam.
“Another lady told me that her child who drowned more than five years ago was never found,” the mother said, adding that the government had tried to fence the dam but “residents stole the fence bit by bit”.
Other residents said the government had failed to build swimming pools in townships, including Scenery Park and Mdantsane, making many children victims of drowning in the surrounding dams.
“There is a child that dies in that dam every year. We have been requesting for help but we are helpless now,” said resident Mbasa Mfanta.
Another drowning incident was reported by the Daily Dispatch last year in January when 10-year-old Thabiso Mbaba drowned in the dam.
He was with his friends trying to cool off from the summer heat.
The Dispatch reported that his body was found floating in the water by his older brother Sithembiso, who had rushed to the dam after he had been alerted by neighbours.
Sithembiso had tried to resuscitate Thabiso in vain.
Police confirmed the Grade 4 pupil from the township’s Zwelemfundo Primary School had died at the dam.
His mother, Yoliswa Mbava, said the family was devastated by the loss of her second eldest child.
She told the Daily Dispatch that she had been told by some of his friends that he had been pushed into the water by another friend.
Police spokeswoman Warrant Office Hazel Mqala said there were no cases reported to the police about the stolen fencing and there was no investigation concerning that matter.
She said drownings were mostly reported during the summer months and was unable to provide statistics on how many incidents had been reported in the area over the years.
BCM spokesman Sibusiso Cindi had not responded to questions by the time of writing yesterday. — mamelag