A river of sewage runs through it
Boipatong, site of the 1992 massacre, now faces a new ordeal
● Almost 30 years ago, Bakoena Street ran red with blood when 45 people were killed in the infamous Boipatong massacre.
Today it is sewage that runs down the road in the Vaal Triangle township.
Bakoena Street has been home to Josephine Motholo since the 1970s. Two years ago the main sewage pipe into her property collapsed and since then she’s had to live with a river of human waste that pours from the drain outside her bathroom.
The community’s waste erupts up her toilet bowl, and across her lawn, where an army of flies swarms.
“Three of us live here, I am always sick. I can’t use my own toilet when this happens. I must go next door,” Motholo said. “They say because the problem is in my yard that I must fix it.”
A report released on Wednesday by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) found the Emfuleni municipality, by allowing effluent to stream unabated into the Vaal River, had violated the human rights of about 19-million people who depend on the river for drinking water and commercial use. The commission asked the national government to intervene urgently.
The faecal pollution is so bad that the E.coli count in river water in the Boipatong area recently soared to levels far higher than even the 400 units per 100ml of water that is regarded as posing a high risk of gastrointestinal disorders.
According to the SAHRC report, the sight of children playing in streams of sewage in Sharpeville in 2018 was one of the reasons the commission decided to investigate.
When the Sunday Times visited the area on Friday, nothing had changed — except perhaps in the attitude of local residents, who are now taking things into their own hands.
Modise Molefe, who also lives on Bakoena Street, set up a nonprofit organisation, the Reliable Environmental Protection & Care Agency, during lockdown.
“During level 5 lockdown I discovered Covid had a lot to do with hygiene,” he said.
“Then I thought about my community. Waste doesn’t get collected and sewage is leaking into people’s homes. Children play in polluted water and houses are under siege by sewage.
“It is an environmental disaster and people here are sick from it.”
One of the houses “under siege” belongs to Abraham Majoro May. On Friday it stood on dry soil but it was clear that sewage seeping into his garden from a nearby manhole had eaten away at the foundations of his home.
“Everything got wet — my furniture was destroyed,” May said. “The stress it has had on me — I began to get chest pains, my children all had [diarrhoea].”
Molefe showed the Sunday Times correspondence about his house with the Emfuleni municipality — which is now under administration — in the middle of last year.
Six months later, on December 29, with no action taken, Molefe sent images to President Cyril Ramaphosa. The president responded on January 2 and nine days later the broken infrastructure was fixed.
Said May: “The government wants us to vote for them but they only come clean before elections. Now they say, ‘Look what we have done for you,’ but they haven’t even come to see me.”
Isaac Mofokeng founded the Itireleng Task Team in May and mobilised 10 other people to help to build barriers to divert sewage so it does not flood the streets.
One site where they intervened is opposite the Lebohang primary and high schools on Sekati Street, where pupils had to wade through sewage so deep that cars wouldn’t drive through it.
The task team redirected the sewage — which is still gushing out of the drains — and created a park on an old dumping ground nearby. They have done similar work throughout the community.
In return, locals give the team donations. They all used to be the breadwinners for their families but lost their jobs during the lockdown.
“We are cleaning up our community but we are still struggling,” Mofokeng said.
“The hazard of the sewers is killing us. Our aim is to clean up all the illegal dumping sites in the community, and our community gives back to us with a stipend.
“We are looking to buy more machinery [to make the job easier], so we wanted the municipality to come out and see the work we have done. But after several letters, still nobody has come to see us.”
Lindiwe Sisulu, the minister of human settlements, water & sanitation, responded to the SAHRC report on Friday.
“For the past year, I’ve been in extensive discussions with the local community and the business people in the area about the same matter,” she said.
“Today I met co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and briefed her. We … and the commission are in agreement that section 63 of the Water Act is the only solution to the problem.”
This means the central government will take responsibility for Emfuleni’s water infrastructure.
Emfuleni municipal spokesperson Lebo Mofokeng said questions should be directed to the human settlements department.
What They Said
I am always sick. I can’t use my own toilet when this happens. I must go next door
Josephine Motholo
Children play in polluted water … it is an environmental disaster
Modise Molefe