No water in KaNyamazane and surrounding areas
Schools in areas such as KaNyamazane had to be cancelled last week due to the shortage of water. Derrick Shongwe, a KaNyamazane community member, told Lowvelder Express that the shortage has greatly affected them.
The communities of KaNyamazane, Tekwane South, North and West, Pienaar and some parts of Lehawu were left stranded without water for the entire week. This has angered the affected residents who have threatened to boycott the upcoming local government elections if the problem persists.
Schools in areas such as KaNyamazane had to be cancelled last week due to the shortage of water. Derrick Shongwe, a KaNyamazane community member, told Lowvelder Express that the shortage has greatly affected them.
“It was difficult! I could not cook. I could not bath. I had to go to the shopping centre to buy 15 litres of bottled water which is expensive. The next day I had to buy yet another 15 as the first load was not enough for a family of six. Fortunately, I wasn’t working that day, but my day was disrupted altogether. I was frustrated and didn’t know what to do,” he fumed.
The City of Mbombela’s spokesperson, Joseph Ngala, said the water shortage lasted longer than expected due to the system needing time to get back to normal.He said this was after they had conducted maintenance on the bulk water distribution pump line.
“If you’ve had no water on the system for over 18 hours, it takes close to a week before the entire system normalises. Like the City indicated in the notice on Tuesday, other means of delivering water were being expedited, but our areas are vast and there isn’t enough to go around. We are working on it,” explained Ngala.
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Meanwhile, the spokesperson for Silulumanzi, Richmond Jele, said the water shortages were also caused by illegal connections made by people living along the water pipeline. “New sand filters are being installed at the regional water treatment works located in KaNyamazane. It took a while to obtain approval from the City of Mbombela for the refurbishment of the sand filters and some more days to get the required sand delivered for the filtration system,” said Jele.
“There are numerous water leaks on the bulk pump lines sending water to reservoirs as well as more leaks from reservoirs to households. This is due to the increasing number of illegal connections made by people. When water is reopened from reservoirs to supply communities, the reservoirs run dry so quickly. This is due to all the internal toilet leaks inside households and the fact that everybody is filling up at the same time. Eskom load reduction has been occurring twice a day. When there is no electricity, it means the pumps and the water purification system cannot operate, since it needs massive electricity to function,” added Jele.
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He added that the quality of the water would improve once the refurbishment of the sand filters is completed by the end of the week.
