King residents plead with BCM for water

Desperate residents from King William’s Town villages have urged Buffalo City Metro (BCM) to provide them with water, claiming the metro failed to deliver this basic need in the last financial year.

The new outcry for water was registered at the first public hearing meeting held by the municipal public accounts committee (Mpac) in Zwelitsha on Wednesday.

This is where the 2017-18 annual report was discussed.

BCM mayor Xola Pakati presented the report of the previous financial year, last month.

Ward 38 resident, Phumelele Nkanjeni, said they faced a water crisis in Jafta village. “We don’t have water in our taps and this is a big crisis because there is absolutely nothing you can do without water.”

Another concerned resident from ward 35, Mbuyiselo Soyi, said they sometimes went for two months without running water. “We are now forced to damage water pipes with the hope of getting some water. We break those pipes.

“We are not proud of that, because now we are damaging government infrastructure that is already available, but we are very desperate to get water,” said Soyi.

Nonkcampa village resident, Jongilizwe Nondobo, said a water project that started last year, was left abandoned in November, leaving thousands of residents in the dark about the future of the project, while many were left sick from drinking dirty water.

Mpac chairperson Zameka Kodwa-Gajula acknowledged that the feedback from the residents was dominated by the request for water services.

“It is very evident that water is a big issue and that is unfortunate as water is a basic service. You should not even be complaining about not getting water. You could maybe complain about other things like roads and other stuff but not water.”

The metro’s executive support services, corporate services, economic development agencies and spatial planning and development bosses, were asked why they had failed to spend their budgets adequately and why they had omitted information about money in their annual reports.

Accounting for his department, economic development & agencies portfolio head and ANC councillor Mzwandile Vaaiboom said a construction company was on site in Dimbaza to fence off the industrial area in line with the government’s efforts to revitalise the factories.

“R3m has been set aside and we are working with the Eastern Cape Development Corporation to fence all the factories,” he said.

This a big crisis... there is absolutely nothing you can do without water Phumelele Nkanjeni Ward 35 Jafta Village resident