Relief as Komani man buys water tank for community
Instead of complaining about the intermittent water outages in his Nomzamo neighbourhood in Komani, good Samaritan Phikolomzi Jaxa bought a water tank to help his community.
Nomzamo, like many other areas in Komani, experiences water outages on a regular basis due to shortages and, at times, pipeline faults and leaks.
This despite Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM) having spent nearly R1bn on water infrastructure in the last three financial years.
Residents have raised concerns about CHDM not adhering to its water rationing and carting schedule, leaving hundreds of ratepayers high and dry.
However, Jaxa decided to be proactive and found a way to mitigate the persistent problem for the benefit of his community.
“When all the other houses do not have water, my yard is not affected at all.
“I started allowing people to get the water late last year after realising how the outages affected people, especially small businesses owners like myself.
“I wrote a social media post asking anyone to donate a water tank for my community last year and the CHDM mayor, Wongama Gela, responded by asking for my contact details, but I never heard from him again.
“I saved up some money and bought the tank for my community as a way to show gratitude for the support they have shown my small business since it started,” he said.
Jaxa said there was no way of planning around the CHDM rationing schedule because water could be available in the early hours of the morning and then not for the rest of the day.
Sometimes there was no water available for days on end, without any notice, he said.
“Water would come on at 2am and be off again from 6am until the next day.
“If you require to do some laundry, you need to fill containers in the wee hours of the morning.
“Our houses have a bad stench because we cannot flush toilets during the day, even the recycled water gives off a bad smell when kept for long.
“With this tank, my yard will always be open for anyone to fetch water when they need to, but every household is limited to 40l a day,” he said.
The launch of the Xonxa Dam in 2019 was supposed to bring relief to the 18,463 Komani households, a project residents eagerly waited for 16 years.
Nomzamo resident Anele Phillip said the opening of the Xonxa Dam had had little to no positive effect for the whole of Mlungisi township because they still often had no water for days.
“We are truly thankful to Phikolomzi for showing love to his community and to do something like this, not for himself, but the whole community.
“It is people like him that make the real difference among the communities we live in.
“May his small business continue to thrive and grow so he may help more people,” he said.
CHDM spokesperson Bulelwa Ganyaza said the municipality had planned several water infrastructure projects over the past three financial years that would improve access to water for many communities.
“The municipality has spent about R900m in the last three financial years for planned and implemented water infrastructure projects throughout the district.
“A number of these projects are in varying stages of completion, with some that are fully functional,” she said.