Residents gambling with their lives to get water

Water shortages in ward 100 have forced residents of Skierlik and Mountain View to fetch water from a local quarry, where two boys drowned while swimming two years ago.

Sphiwe Khoza, a community representative, said residents have no choice but to fetch water and do their washing at the quarry “never mind what happened there”.

He said the shortage of water is a serious issue and residents have clashed over buckets that mysteriously disappeared from next to the JoJo tanks.

“Some residents avoid fights by fetching water from the quarry despite putting their health at risk, whilst they know that the quarry has taken the lives of a 5- and 7-year-old boys two years ago,” said Khoza.

Resident Suzan Mafafu said: “The situation is very bad and we desperately need water.”

She said water is life, but the Tshwane metro seems to forget that without water people might die of thirst.

“We desperately need water almost every day to cook, bath, wash and prepare children to go to school,” said Mafafu.

She said the Tshwane metro needs to take the matter of water shortage in ward 100 very seriously before people will die of thirst.

The affected areas are Lethabong, Pienaarspoort, Mountain View, EFF, Kopanong and Powerline informal settlements in the Far East of Mamelodi.

Tshepo Motloma, another resident, said the issue of water has worsened since Randall Williams resigned as Tshwane mayor in early February.

He said the service provider stopped water delivery.

“We are suffering as the residents and all the households here have not received water in weeks and we use our money to buy water and water is life,” said Motloma.

He said when they asked water tanker drivers why they don’t deliver water, they were told that the city of Tshwane had not paid them.

“We need help and if the municipality is not willing to help us with water then we are calling on the provincial level and national level to help us because the municipality failed us,” he said.

Khoza added that if there was no resolution to the water shortages, the community would take their frustration to the streets at the weekend

“Residents desperately need water and the Tshwane metro needs to take residents very seriously,” he added.

“There is high unemployment and those who have money buy water, but the Tshwane metro also forgets we have elderly people who also walk a long distance to fetch water.”

Paul Nkuna said: “Every day we go up and down with buckets looking for a place where we can get water and those who can afford can buy water and those who can’t suffer.

We are pleading for water that is all we want not stories. Most importantly they need to pay the drivers to deliver water,” he said.

Last year a Retshwenyegile informal settlement couple narrowly escaped death when a shortage of water prevented locals from putting out their shack fire. The two were hospitalised for smoke inhalation.

The residents claimed water tanker drivers had not filled up the three JoJo tanks in the area and as a result, they had no water to fight the shack fire with.

The Tshwane metro had yet to comment at the time of publication.

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