National officials in Knysna to address crisis

The teams visited the town’s wastewater treatment works, water treatment works, various sewer pump stations and the rivers

For months, Knysna residents have had to contend with sewage in the streets while many have had no potable water for weeks on end.

The crisis, which includes raw effluent flowing into the Knysna Estuary, posing health risks to residents and wildlife, has made national headlines, triggering protest marches and piling pressure on the ANC-led coalition that runs the municipality.

Two weeks ago, deputy president Paul Mashatile, accompanied by co-operative governance deputy minister Parks Tau and water and sanitation deputy minister David Mahlobo, met Knysna’s coalition government in an attempt to find a solution to the crisis.

This week, representatives of the national department of water and sanitation arrived in the Garden Route town to conduct an oversight visit and education campaign targeting residents of Hornlee and Damse-Bos, who have been badly affected by the water crisis.

Residents, however, questioned the delayed response by the department after having had to deal for months with ongoing service delivery issues, ranging from power and water outages to sewage leaks.

The department, in conjunction with the Western Cape provincial government and Breede-Olifants Catchment Management Agency, started the two-day oversight visit and education campaign on Tuesday.

Vandalism as well as ageing and broken infrastructure and lack of maintenance have provisionally been identified as major causes of the water and sewage problems.

The teams visited the town’s wastewater treatment works, water treatment works, various sewer pump stations and the rivers affected by poor-quality effluent being discharged from the pump stations.

They then conducted door-to-door visits as part of an anti-vandalism awareness programme.

The national deputy director of capacity building and support in the department of water and sanitation, Zolile Simawo, said broken infrastructure needed to be serviced and upgraded while residents should also safeguard infrastructure to avoid more incidents.

“The department is here to assist the town, to find out about the challenges and conduct a report of our findings.

“But in our evaluations we have discovered that there is a huge problem of vandalism, which is why today [yesterday] we are taking time to teach the community about [the consequences of] vandalism.”

Simawo said after meeting other national government officials, the team would return to Knysna with a report containing solutions to the town’s water crisis.

The department was also waiting for the Knysna municipality to apply for grant funding to resolve its water infrastructure issues.

During the door-to-door visits, the delegation met 54-yearold disabled Dam-se-Bos resident Nompikiso Silo, who has had to contend with sewage filling her yard and dilapidated shack as a result of a nearby broken pipe.

Silo, who said she had been waiting to receive an RDP house for several years, lives in the one-room shack with her daughter and grandchild.

“There is an RDP house vandalised nearby that the community wanted to take [for me], but I was told by the municipality that it is not built for someone with disabilities,” she said.

Dam-se-Bos community leader Siyabulela Kolanisi said he hoped the officials had come to Knysna to solve the issues and provide Silo with a house.

“We [also] need security in our stadium so that people can stop vandalising it, and for the municipality to give tenders to companies who can do these jobs,” Kolanisi said.

“Now we have an infrastructure problem in a community that was developed less than 10 years ago.

“Why did the municipality not upgrade infrastructure before building here?”