The Democratic Alliance (DA) is taking the matter of Tembisa’s poisonous water to the Minister of Water and Sanitation.
DA Lethabong Constituency head, MP Mike Waters, said this is in response to the lack of action taken by the Ekurhuleni Metro Municipality (EMM) and the urgency of the situation.
MP Waters said samples of streams running through communities have been taken by the metro but that the results are being withheld.
He said EMM is responsible for the contamination as they have failed to maintain and replace aging sewerage and water infrastructure in the area.
He said financial statements submitted to the Gauteng Treasury show that at the end of the 2014/15 financial year in June, the metro had only spent 48 percent of the R127 million budgeted for waste water management and had failed to spend 46 percent of the R333 million allocated to water services.
“This means that the metro failed to spend just over R200 million allocated to water and sewerage infrastructure during the previous financial year.”
“We recently sent water samples from Tembisa for testing, which revealed that the water contained high levels of harmful bacteria mainly due to human and animal faecal contamination,” said MP Waters. MP Waters said the result shows that the water in Tembisa is unfit for drinking and recreational use.
He said the tests reveal that Tembisa water contains a 43 000 level of E-Coli bacteria and that acceptable levels are 1000.
“The water also contains exceptionally high levels of general bacteria. The acceptable level is 5000, the level in Tembisa water is 490 000 and due to sewerage leaking into water, the level of coliforms (which consists of human and animal faeces) is 80 000, while the acceptable level is only 30,” he said.
According to MP Waters these contaminated streams run adjacent to schools and pose health risks of diarrhoea, skin-, ear- and respiratory infections.
“We are therefore urging residents to avoid the area where this water is found and to refrain from drinking this water or using it for any household activities including bathing, cleaning or cooking,” he said.
He told Tembisan that the DA has been circulating a petition in the area calling for EMM to take urgent action to ensure the water is safe for residents to use. The petition has also been posted online at https://www.petitions24.com/tembisa_water.
“We will be handing this petition to council at the end of August, but will also be submitting it to the national Minister of Water and Sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane for her department’s urgent intervention in the matter,” he said.
They will also be writing to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).
“Every South African has the right to access clean drinking water. It is unacceptable that residents of Tembisa are being denied this right. It is critical that this matter is resolved immediately,” MP Waters said.
The Tembisan still awaits comment from EMM.
