Water leak in KwaDwesi finally fixed
When The Herald was alerted to a water leak in KwaDwesi last week, the team sent to check it out did not have to use a map to find the affected house — the leaks could be seen all the way from the top of the street.
The water trail led to the Saki family’s house.
Water had been streaming down Mvethi Street for months, with the residents questioning just how serious the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality was about conserving water.
Nandi Saki, who wrote to Metro Matters, said the water just kept gushing out of leaks at different points outside yards along Mvethi Street and it had been reported to the municipality numerous times — but no-one ever came out to fix it.
That was until The Herald became involved.
Yesterday, Nelson Mandela Bay municipal spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki said a team had fixed the leaks over the weekend.
The affected families confirmed that the leaks had been fixed yesterday afternoon.
However, it had not been an easy road for them.
“We reported it in February and they [municipality] gave us a reference number and promised to come and look, but no-one came,” Saki said.
Then, last month, she followed up on the complaint, only to be directed to the supervisor, Shaun du Preez, and she had been calling ever since.
“A friend referred us to a Mr Ndoni who works in the water department.
“They gave us a new reference, and still no-one attended to the leaks.”
Saki said that early this month they had held a traditional wedding, and had called the municipality.
She said the plumbers who came said they had been told to go to 30 Mvethi Street, and there had been no call-out for number 52.
“We don’t have that number [house] in my street, but when we explained this to the plumbers they said they had been given only that number and we must phone their office and report it again.
“We did, and still no-one came.”
Ellina Saki, 74, said there was no stormwater drain in the street and, every time there was a leak, water would stream down the street.
This became worse when it rained.
“I don’t know how many times we have cried to the municipality.
“The water becomes stagnant and we battle with mosquitoes,” she said.
As of July 1, the metro will no longer be able to extract water from the Kouga Dam.
Nelson Mandela Bay infrastructure and engineering acting executive director Joseph Tsatsire said on Thursday that the situation could not be more serious.
It was reported that the dam was down to 5.09% and, unless there was significant inflow before then, by July 1 the city would have reached the 3.1% capacity level, marking the beginning of dead storage.
The metro had fixed 30,000 leaks since April last year and as of the beginning of last week, had 4,000 left to fix.
The Mvethi Street leak had apparently been on their list of leaks to fix.
However, Nomonde Dingelo, 73, who also lives in Mvethi Street, accused them of incompetence.
“They are always blaming us residents for the misuse of water during this drought and saying that the dams were running low, and when we report the leaks they take months to fix them while thousands of litres of water is being wasted,” she said.
“We desperately need help as this is pure, clean water being wasted.”
She believed there was a problem with the pipeline on the street.