Villagers claim dire shortage of water

FOR three months Luyolo village residents have had to travel to neighbouring villages to ask for water while they put their 100-litre water drums in place praying for rain.

And finally it rained this week. For the first time since July, they could sleep in peace without worrying about where they would get water.

The village’s five communal taps have been dry for months and, for a while, Buffalo City Metro carted water to them.

But suddenly that stopped, without explanation, they claimed.

The villagers said sometimes they even drank from the streams their livestock use.

Councillor Vuyani Peter said he was unaware of their plight and dismissed their complaints as politics, saying they might be a result of last week’s Eastern Cape ANC provincial conference.

But villager McGregor Hlekani, 65, who has lived in the community for more than a decade, said they were faced with a real problem.

He said this was the first time that the village was experiencing such a “dire situation”.

“For the past three months we’ve been surviving on grace. When it rains, we always hope that enough water will fill our drums.

“If it doesn’t rain, I travel to neighbouring villages to ask for water from people with tanks.

“We’ve tried calling the people who brought the water to us before, but he just makes promises and never comes through. It’s survival of the fittest now that water tankers don’t come anymore.

“They have been giving us water for years – why have they suddenly stopped?”

He said the lack of water had cost their village dearly, as they had lost livestock and vegetation.

When the Daily Dispatch arrived at Nobesuthu Mzondo’s one-roomed shack on Wednesday, she was using the last bit of water from a drum outside.

As she was filling up her jug with the water, she prayed for more rain.

“We don’t have communal tanks like other villages and we rely on these drums. This little rain has helped my family because we use the water to cook and clean. I used to walk a long way to get to the communal taps, but even that was better.”

Phumzile Mengu said: “When it rains, we even draw water from a stream further down, but it’s unhygienic because our cattle graze there.”

Peter refuted the villagers’ claims, saying that they were “blatant lies”.

“Whoever said that is confused and making up stories. Since I became their councillor, we have been assisting them with water. They haven’t mentioned this to me.

“I know that trucks are available all the time. Maybe it’s not their turn to receive the water yet. It’s possible that these are just outcomes of the ANC conference.”

BCM spokesman Samkelo Ngwenya had not responded to questions at the time of writing. —