Water fiasco betrays ANC lies
No-one could make this up as a black comedy. Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s acting city manager, Noxolo Nqwazi, wishes to assure us “that the municipality has not just woken up and is dealing with the water crisis”.
She assures us the metro is “now getting to the root of the problems looking at when leaks are reported, how long it takes to deploy a plumber to when the leak is fixed.”
The following dates indicate headlines and articles that appeared in The Herald:
February 6 2017: Unions force municipality to advertise vacancies internally as water losses escalate. The stalemate between unions and NMBM resulted in NMBM being unable to hire plumbers to fix water leaks.
February 27 2017: NMBM executive director of infrastructure and engineering raises the alarm saying the metro is “losing about 21% of its water use to leaks ...”
July 31 2017: A Herald investigative report: “Nelson Mandela Bay’s crumbling infrastructure and staffing crisis were laid bare at the weekend as thousands of litres of fresh water flushed down the drain, with only five staff on duty to respond to burst pipes and water leaks.”
October 24 2017: Nelson Mandela Bay proposes to beat drought with R7bn infrastructure investment from National
Disaster Fund. Some of the projects on the list are already receiving attention, such as repairs and maintenance of ageing infrastructure.
November 1 2017: Metro losing revenue on 40% of water supply. ANC councillor Rory Riordan demanded to know why, amid the drought and ailing infrastructure, the municipality had not spent more than R100m set aside for repairs and maintenance. “The underspending of maintenance and repairs money continues and we need to change that,” Riordan said.
May 21 2018: What a waste, 307-billion litres of water lost since 2010. The amount of water lost since the last drought through ailing infrastructure and inaccurate billing would have filled up all of Nelson Mandela Bay’s supply dams.
July 12 2018: Bay tightens water curbs as crisis deepens. Mayor Athol Trollip says, “Equally important, the municipality must increase its efforts to deal with water leaks, speedily and efficiently.”
July 21 2018: Metro winning battle with leaks. “Efforts by the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality to clamp down on leaks are starting to bear fruit, with the city boasting one of the lowest water-loss figures in years. In February, about 22.3% of water was lost through leaks, down almost 5% from the previous month and almost 18% lower than in December.” Not long after, the DA was removed from office by the ANC coalition.
December 28 2018: Metro flunks audit again. “In the year under review, the metro lost an average 43.9% of water due to leaks and unbilled usage.”
I could carry on and on proving how the ANC has created a dysfunctional water infrastructure in Nelson Mandela Bay through incompetence, lack of spending on infrastructure and internal squabbling.
The vast majority of leaks affect people in previously disadvantaged communities, as constantly reported in The Herald, yet we are told by Andile Lungisa that our water problems have escalated due to more handwashing as people sanitise to protect themselves against Covid-19.
If so, please could someone explain what has happened to our infrastructure since 1994?
What has happened to R7bn, and money for SMME operators to be trained as plumbers?
The ANC, in the last elections and since 1994, promised to uplift the people of the Bay. They lied.