Gift of Givers trucking in water for dry Makhanda
Municipal ineptitude as James Kleynhans plant unable to purify enough
Disaster relief organisation Gift of the Givers is sending truckloads of drinking water and its expertise to Makhanda, where water outages have left the majority of the 80,000-strong population high and dry for more than a week.
At the same time, a civil society organisation has warned that it is launching a high court application to have the dysfunctional municipal council dissolved and new elections held within three months.
People resorted to social media with desperate pleas for water, particularly for the elderly, disabled and vulnerable living in densely populated Makhanda East.
Schools, where tanks have run dry and where toilets have now blocked due to a lack of water, are sending children home early.
Day Zero – at least in the western half of the city – is expected within weeks as dams to the west of the city dry up.
Ironically, it is not the empty dams that triggered the current crisis, but rather a municipality which seems to lack the technical knowledge to meet its citizens’ water needs.
In theory, Makhanda – as one of the beneficiaries of the plentiful Orange/Fish River project – has an abundant supply of water.
But, Makana municipality says its James Kleynhans water treatment plant to the east of the city does not have the capacity to purify enough water to supply even Makhanda East.
It sent a notice out to residents in February warning that when Settlers and adjacent Howiesons Poort dams west of the city ran out, it would have to supply the east and the west on alternating days.
This means the east would get water for two days and then be without for two days while it supplied the west. While the JK treatment plant is being upgraded, the city will not feel the benefit of this until 2021.
Disaster struck last week and mayor Mzukisi Mphalwa was forced to announce that the water from the Glen Melville Dam to the east was too turbid (muddy) to pump due to flooding upstream in the Fish River.
The pumps had to be switched off until the mud settled, a process he estimated would take about five more days.
Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman said citizens had contacted it to assist.
He said the trucks would arrive in Makhanda on Tuesday with bottled water.
It would also send its specialist hydrologist and geologist, Dr Gideon Groenewald, to assist the municipality to explore sustainable alternatives.
In the meantime, the socalled Concerned Citizens Group (CCG) which incorporates the Unemployed Peoples Movement (UPM), is resorting to court at a point where the Makana municipality’s dysfunctionality has reached calamitous proportions.
Municipal workers embarked on a silent strike some eight days ago, apparently because they have not been provided with protective clothing or the tools of trade.