Ugu crisis: South Coast Water Action Group reaches out to Minister Lindiwe Sisulu
Another member of the group, wanted to know if Ugu was regurgitating 'untruths' or if it was just 'incompetent'.
South Coast Water Action Group (SCWAG), consisting of a strong team of residents and business owners, has been formed in an attempt to resolve the deepening water crisis. Residents of Hibberdene and certain other nearby towns have been without water since January 11.
Pumula has reached more than 20 days of no water.
One of SCWAG’s members, Vijay Naidoo, was in discussion recently with Lindiwe Sisulu, the Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation.
He said that, according to Minister Sisulu, the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Human Settlements and Public Works, Peggy Nkonyeni, had raised the matter with her, and she has requested Umgeni technical expertise to assist in identifying and solving the problems.
He said that she further explained that her own department was being restructured in order to be able to assist municipalities and sincerely regretted the impact that this has had on business and would be sending urgent intervention.
The SCWAG team will also aim to engage with Ugu District Municipality through the courts, by either a letter of dispute or a summons, in order to assume control of the management and operation of the surrounding water infrastructure.
Presently, the team is working with Ugu, the local community and provincial authorities to have this critical and life-threatening situation speedily resolved.
As the water crisis has deepened along the coast, tempers have flared as irate residents have reached boiling point.
Another member of the group, wanted to know if Ugu was regurgitating ‘untruths’ or if it was just ‘incompetent’.
He was angry, saying that Ugu continued to mislead the community with misinformation, while failing to resolve the problem, and that it had not called on provincial or national government for urgent assistance, nor even requested humanitarian intervention by the SANDF.
“As a result, the community is at its wits end, and tensions are soaring, due not only to the severe and obvious health hazard of this situation, but also the fact that in the midst of an unprecedented global Covid-19 pandemic, the inability of an entire community to wash nor to sanitise exacerbates the situation.”
He cited a situation where an essential worker had to photograph three bodies in the mortuary – and then go home, taking germs with, and not having any water to wash with, placing family members at risk. The potential of unnecessarily creating a Covid-19 hot-spot in the area is also very high.
“In the two months of January and February we have had just seven days of water!” said another angry resident.
An irate woman had this to say: “My husband is medically boarded and he has a colostomy bag he wears on the outside of his clothing, and we must have water to keep this medical bag clean and healthy. I don’t want to know about the ‘umming and aaahing’, I just want the problem fixed!”
Concern was also expressed over Ugu’s inability to resolve problems with maintenance and infrastructure. In some cases, he said, farm workers had to help Ugu workers in finding pipelines.
The example referred to the main Melville supply line from Sunwich Port to Hibberdene, including Woodgrange and Stick Farm.
In the above instance, it appears Ugu teams were unable to locate a specific water pipe near the river and had to be pointed out by a farm labourer.
No response was received from Ugu before going to press (yesterday).
However, Ugu has since been in discussions with residents of Hibberdene to plan a way forward.
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