City denies water crisis

Marathon informal settlement residents denied statements made by the City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) about services delivery.

In response to questions from GCN, CoE spokesperson Zweli Dlamini said the community of Marathon informal settlement are within their constitutional rights to request services from CoE.

“However, CoE is also rendering basic services to other informal settlements. These services include drinking water through communal taps at the spacing not exceeding 100m and chemical toilets at 1:5 families’ ratio.”

CoE denied Marathon is faced with a water crisis and instead blamed residents for the illegal connection of pipelines.

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“Marathon informal settlement doesn’t have a water crisis as it is getting its supply from the bulk line supplying Germiston CBD,” said Dlamini.

“The challenges observed at informal settlements are illegal water connections to individual shacks that cause low water pressure to no water at the worst scenario.”

When asked whether or not the City has any plans to improve the living conditions of the people of this informal settlement, the City spokesperson said, “The informal settlement has already been incorporated into the re-blocking programme for better serviced standards and easy accessibility of all basic services.

“We are investigating possibilities of re-blocking programmes and other human settlement department programmes, which will include linking qualifying beneficiaries to formal housing development projects,” he said.

Dlamini added CoE renders water, waste collection, grading of roads, health services and sanitation services to this informal settlement.

“The services exclude electrification of the houses, which requires permission from the landowner and environmental considerations,” said Dlamini.

Resident Wiseman Mahlali, who previously spoke out against the lack of water supply to the informal settlement, denied the City renders sufficient services.

“Waste services are not rendered, we all have our dumping sites and later burn the rubble,” said Mahlali.

“Water is a huge problem. We all rely on a single tap to service a large number of people; sometimes, the water drips slowly because it does not have much pressure.”

Another resident, Thabiso Mokoena, said the toilets sometimes take two weeks to be serviced and as a result, residents have resorted to building their own pit toilets.

Contact the newsroom by emailing: 
Marietta Lombard (Editor) germistoncitynews@caxton.co.za,  or (Journalists) Busi Vilakazi busiv@caxton.co.za