Students lead Makhanda water protest
● Some areas without supply for more than two weeks, amid ongoing crisis
Residents, staff and students from Rhodes University and the College of the Transfiguration, businesspeople, members of the Unemployed People’s Movement and community leaders joined in protest yesterday against renewed prolonged water outages in Makhanda.
The Eastern Cape town, home of the upcoming National Arts Festival, has been in the grip of a water crisis for the past decade.
The protesters marched from the university campus to the Makana City Hall where Rhodes SRC president Avuxeni Tyala and Unemployed People’s Movement leader Ayanda Kota addressed a crowd that grew to about 800. Several areas in the townships and some high-lying areas in and around the CBD have been without water for more than two weeks.
Some parts of the town receive water on a one-day-on, two-days-off cycle.
The municipality has been using water tankers to distribute water to residents who queue with buckets and bottles.
Businesses have been forced to buy water to remain open and with little rainfall in the past few weeks, residents’ rainwater tanks are depleted.
“So far we’ve had to do without water for about five of the seven days in a week,” the owner of Jacques’ Artisan Bread in New Street, Jacques
Brits, said. “It’s a disaster — on the two days in a week when there is water, it trickles in at 5am and is on for four or five hours before it starts to trickle off again.
“By 2pm on those two days, we’re without water again,” Brits, who joined the protest, said.
Addressing the crowd, Tyala said: “The municipality is not carrying out its mandated obligation to us. We are here as the student body to say ‘Enough is enough’.”
Reading the group’s memorandum, she said: “We are here to highlight the infringement of our Section 27 rights, specifically, everybody’s right to water ...
“As the Rhodes University student body and Makana community we are demanding a report on the lack of water ... We are calling for accountability ...”
The memorandum called for clear timelines for the new infrastructure being built to improve the town’s supply.
Municipal manager Phumelele Kate signed the memorandum and addressed the crowd.
“We are doing all we can to resolve the issue,” Kate said.
Makhanda’s dams now have sufficient water to supply the town.
However, according to the municipality, the intake valve from Howieson’s Poort Dam to the pump station is believed to be blocked.
The town’s main western supply, Settlers Dam, feeds into Howieson’s Poort.
From there, water is pumped to Waainek and distributed to a series of reservoirs serving the western part of
Makhanda. “The issue of [the Howieson’s Poort pump station], is still not resolved,” the municipality said in an update yesterday.
“A team of divers came to unblock any potential disruption that may be underneath.
“Though some debris and rusted metals were discovered, the blockage is still persisting.
“Amatola Water also dispatched a team of [specialists] yesterday, but to no [avail].”
Further investigations were under way.
The eastern side, including most of Makhanda’s township areas and some other high-lying areas, are served by the James Kleynhans water treatment works via the Botha’s Hill reservoir.
Mechanical problems with the pumps at James Kleynhans have significantly reduced the amount of water coming from the east.
Ward 4 councillor Geoff Embling said some areas had been without water for up to 18 days.
Embling questioned Makana’s ability to manage water provision and called for Makana’s water management to urgently be outsourced to a private company.
Makana Residents’ Association chair Sally Price-Smith said: “The water issues are entirely down to poor management.
“There is no maintenance or operational procedures and as a result equipment fails.”