Water crisis a man-made disaster – DA

The first situation allegedly arose due to a power failure at the Eikenhof pump station.

Affected areas include the Westdene, Coronation, Hursthill and Triomf suburbs; and parts of Bedfordview, Primrose, Marlands, Sunny Ridge, Solheim, Synhurst, Gerdview, Fishershill, Homestead as well as a small part of Witfield, Dawnview, Simmerfield and Wychwood.

When the DA Gauteng spokesperson for Community Safety, Michele Clarke MPL, asked city manager Khaya Ngema why he didn’t declare this matter as a disaster, seeing that so many areas were being affected, he allegedly felt that it wasn’t necessary.

“The disaster management team said they will not do it until they get a directory from the mayor and this is just not happening,” says Clarke.

According to the DA Gauteng Provincial Leader, John Moodey, this is indeed a major disaster and he believes that the President should declare it as such, and have a thorough investigation into what has happened.

“Unless the State President steps in here, I don’t believe that it will be resolved very soon.”

He says that local municipalities, metros, Eskom and Rand Water are shifting the blame for the actual cause of this water crisis.

“What about our hospitals; our children’s education has also been affected by this.”

“Children were sent home from schools, because of no water and the sewerage system that’s out of order. Children will be picking up all unnecessary diseases.”

From a Provincial point of view, DA deputy chief-whip Mike Waters, says they remain concerned, especially the fact that the disaster has spread so widely, and that they aren’t able to stop it from spreading.

Waters mentioned the following issues that the DA need to debate:

* The economic impact on the province: Gauteng is the fourth largest economy in Africa and, therefore, is the power house that really keeps South Africa going economically. Industries cannot function without water. When investors do their research on Gauteng and see these kinds of problems, Waters said that it actually put’s them off. Industries need constant supply of water and electricity, proper communication on infrastructure, and proper infrastructure itself.

* Rand Water is not communicating on the crisis.

* The DA calls on the Gauteng Premier David Makhura to launch a commission of inquiry to what caused the water supply crisis, because it needs to be prevented from happening in the future. According to Waters, this potentially has a much larger impact than E-tolls would ever have.

“We cannot afford this province to be without water and electricity.”

* Safety and crime issue need attention: one of the causes of this water crisis is cable theft. There has been an increase in this crime in Gauteng for the past three or four months. There’s been no action or successes in catching or prosecuting culprits. There’s also been no action against scrapyards that pay and purchase these second-hand cabling.

“We need action on the issue of cable theft.”

The Ekurhuleni DA had to face a number of issues during this period, but the councillors biggest problem thus far, was getting information out to their respective communities.

“I am really concerned about the people we are not able to reach. There are many individual elderly people in homes, scattered all over, that aren’t on e-mail or social networks,” says DA Ward 20 Clr Jill Humphreys (Bedfordview area).

She also says that the Ekurhuleni metro should have made an effort in keeping those affected residents up-to-date with the latest developments, like announcing it over speakers in the streets or handing out flyers.

“It’s not only been the water shortage, but also electrical outages – so people is literally in the dark with no water and no information. It is unacceptable in every way,” says Humphreys.

Another concern is the fact that people are starting to get sick from having no water, as well as water tankers arriving late or not at all in certain areas.

“Health issues are exceptionally bad and Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni metros are competing for tankers,” says DA PR Clr Jackie Reilly (from Brakpan constituency).

“I don’t think our clinics and hospitals are ready for what is coming. I really, really, think this is an absolutely shocking state of affairs, and I don’t think the metro and Rand Water did anything to alleviate the fear of the community.

“They were very slow in coming together and in organizing public meetings.”

DA Gauteng shadow MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Fred Nel MPL, says that this disaster could’ve been prevented if proper maintenance had been done on water pumps and electricity supply.

“If there’s a power failure at the water pumps, there’s no plan B at all. If it happens again, what are the metro, the provincial government, and the national government going to do?

“The metro only has two working water tanks. I’ve raised it with the officials – it was not denied, but it wasn’t confirmed either.”

The Ekurhuleni DA now has a petition going which they are writing to four national ministers.

The petition will be distributed among all the residents of Ekurhuleni over the next couple of weeks, and will be submitted to the ministers when Parliament opens mid-October.

“We will be expecting them to do a full investigation to get to the root cause as to why this crisis started,” says Waters.

“We want to know what was the cause of this water crisis, and more importantly, what are they doing to ensure it will never happen again?”

“This is not a natural disaster, it is a man-made disaster. It is incompetence and maladministration. We want to know why the mayor didn’t call a disaster in this metro,” says Reilly.

“Something is fishy and this government, I don’t care at what level, must answer to the public and tell us what is going on.” – @IschkeBoksburg