Residents forced from homes by sewage spills
Some Waterfall Park residents near Mthatha’s oldest township of Ngangelizwe have fled their homes due to raw sewage from blocked manholes spewing into their properties.
Built on a slope next to the Mthatha River, the area’s residents at the bottom of the slope say their yards have been flooded by raw effluent for months.
This despite OR Tambo district municipality promising to repair at least seven dysfunctional raw sewerage pump stations by the end of May.
When it rained heavily, sewage seeped indoors.
The municipality was ordered by water & sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu to prioritise sanitation infrastructure in Mthatha and surrounding areas.
Mchunu, who was in the area to assess flood damage in April, was quoted at the time saying: “We have to look at the health of the people. Those things [raw sewage spills] are hazardous.
“They pose a huge risk to people’s lives. Children and elderly people have to inhale that polluted air,” the minister said
It was also a problem that raw sewage found its way into rivers and streams.
When the Dispatch visited Waterfall on Tuesday, a sewage manhole was gushing litres of raw effluent towards the Mthatha River.
Residents said this had been going on for months.
“It’s painful that we are subject to this kind of life by our own government,” Rose Mzazela said.
“We can’t cook inside our houses as they swarm with flies all the time.”
Meanwhile, Thethekhaya Madulini, 41, said he was excited when he and his family moved into his mother’s RDP house in 2002.
However, that excitement turned into a nightmare as a blocked manhole had spewed raw sewage on the ground around the house since June 2021.
Madulini makes a living respraying damaged cars, but he said he was losing a lot of work because people were tired of the unbearable stench from the yard where he works.
“I cannot remember the last time I actually cooked inside the house.
“Now I have to go to the shops and whatever I buy, I have to eat it there because if I bring it home, I cannot eat it any more.
“The whole house just stinks of human waste.”
The situation forced his family to abandon their home, and they are now staying with neighbours.
Several of Madulini’s immediate neighbours had also abandoned their stinking homes.
Madulini said his mother’s RDP house was less than 20m from the Waterfall sewage pump station.
Security guards at the facility confirmed the station had not had any electricity for more than three weeks.
Speaking during the municipality’s IDP and budget roadshows in May, OR Tambo district deputy mayor Thokozile Sokanyile said they had identified 15 faulty sewage pump stations to be fixed.
But on Tuesday, district municipal spokesperson Zimkhita Macingwane said only five pump stations — Ilitha, Embassy, Maiden Farm, Phase and Ngangelizwe — had been repaired and were now fully operational.
The Waterfall and Ikwezi township pump stations had not yet been fixed.
An amount of R6.6m had been allocated to repair all the faulty pump stations.
But an unimpressed Mthatha Ratepayers and Residents Association spokesperson Madyibi Ngxekana said OR Tambo should be criminally charged for placing the lives of Waterfall residents at risk.
“Their lives and health have been compromised. Their constitutional right to live in a clean and healthy environment has been greatly compromised.”