Local government elections: Port Edwards’ residents rely on ‘holy’ water from a church

Read More

It’s just after 8am on Tuesday.

The first thirsty residents of Port Edward have arrived at the Methodist Church in the lower KwaZulu-Natal South Coast town with a variety of containers after waking up to find their taps dry — again.

The tanks set up outside the library and at other locations around Port Edward are empty, so the church borehole is the only source of the precious liquid, until the supply is restored or the Ugu district municipality tankers — the waterkans — come to fill them up again.

The borehole supplying Port Edward’s “holy” water was sunk by the local ratepayers’ association. They have also built two rows of outside showers and toilets in the church gardens for residents who cannot perform their ablutions at home because of the lack of water.

Port Edward, like Margate, Izingolweni, Port Shepstone and most of the towns falling under the Ugu district municipality, has been battling for water for the past 10 years — with no real relief in sight, despite the launch of a number of water reticulation projects by the provincial government since January.

The water crisis appears to have become the most important issue for locals ahead of the 1 November poll, together with unemployment, inefficient electricity supply and poor roads.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Inkatha Freedom Party have both pitched their campaigns in the district around the water crisis, with the former staging a picket at the Ugu offices two weeks before the local elections.

The DA has also accused the governing ANC of politicising emergency water distribution in the build-up to the elections.

The DA member of the provincial legislature, Rishigen Viranna, said last week that wards held by the party in Protea Park, Marburg, Oslo Beach and Shelly Beach, which had been without water for 14 days, had received only one tanker over the two-week period.

Viranna said DA councillors requesting water from Ugu district municipality were ignored and received no feedback from the council. “The only feedback they have received is from water tanker drivers themselves — rather than senior officials — that they have been deployed to Gamalakhe, an ANC stronghold, to provide water.”

A combination of ageing infrastructure and increasing populations, coupled with corruption and political infighting in the ANC in its district and local municipalities — Ray Nkonyeni, Umuziwabantu, Umdoni and Umzumbe — means that for the 750 000 residents of Ugu district municipality, water is an increasingly scarce commodity.

Ugu municipality is responsible for supply of water to the towns and rural areas throughout the district, but has increasingly failed to do so — or to bill residents accurately for the water that they receive, albeit erratically.

A long, legal battle over the suspended municipal manager, Dhanapalan Naidoo, who left with half a year’s salary as a golden handshake in May; a power struggle between ANC officials and the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) and infighting in the ANC, which controls Ugu and its local municipalities, have contributed to the inability of district municipality to fulfil is mandate regarding water.

So have constant acts of what the municipality calls “vandalism” of reservoirs, pump stations and other critical infrastructure in the updates it puts out to the public on an almost daily basis.

Anton Els, who has been living in Port Edward for three years, was one of the first to arrive on Tuesday for water at the Methodist Church. He said he has “battled” for water since arriving in the town, where he bought his retirement home.

“It’s a complicated situation. The infrastructure is ancient and was designed for far fewer people than live there. As a result the pipes are constantly busting and needing to be replaced and there appears to be no money to do the necessary maintenance,” Els said.

He is not confident that the November elections will make much of a difference to Ugu’s water situation, no matter what the outcome. “The problem is massive. Millions were paid to Eskom to upgrade the electricity supply for the reservoirs but this hasn’t happened. It is very difficult to be optimistic.”

Pinky Ngwekazi, who lives at KwaNzimakwe near Braemar, inland from Port Edward, was filling containers with water at the tap in her front yard. The public relations student said the water had been on for two days, after the taps had been dry for three days.

Pinky Ngwekazi

“It’s always like that. The water is on and off. That’s why I am filling these, because it will go off again,” Ngwekazi said. “We can’t just relax and use water.” 

When the supply is interrupted, Ngwekazi and other residents are dependent on the waterkans, which transport water from the uMtamvuna reservoir for distribution throughout the Port Edward area.

“Sometimes it is very hard here with no water. We just have to sit and wait for the waterkan to come,”’ she said.

Apart from water, Ngwekazi said an irregular electricity supply, poor roads and unemployment are the biggest problems facing the area.

She did not vote in 2016 because she was away studying. She hasn’t registered for this election either and won’t be voting on 1 November. 

Her neighbour, Sifiso Mazibuko, said he would be voting for ANC in ward 11, in the municipality and district this year, as he had done in the past three elections.

“Before, there was nothing in this place. No schools, no electricity, no roads, no clinics. Now we have everything. You see these houses, the ANC built them for the people here,’’ he said. “Water is a big problem. The municipality is trying to fix the problem with the province and national [governments] and they give us water in trucks.” 

Mazibuko said he would continue to vote for the ANC because he believed the party would eventually address the water situation. “I have to vote. I think it will be good if the ANC continues here in Ray Nkonyeni so it can fix things.” 

Further up the coast at Margate, the situation is the same.

Mandla Zondi, a tanker driver for Ugu district municipality’s emergency water services division, is at the head of a small queue of waterkans that has formed at the overhead filling station at the Ugu sports and leisure centre near Marburg.

Ugu uses its own tankers and the services of independent contractors for delivering water. A number of its tankers were burned or damaged in an attack on the Ugu fresh produce market, close to the town’s centre, during the July riots.

Zondi, who has been on the job daily for the past two years, is delivering water to KwaXaba, a village on the outskirts of Gamalakhe. The other drivers are filling up for runs to Uvongo, Margate and Marburg.

Zondi distributes 16 000 litres of water three to four times a day. Today, there will be three loads — the water pressure is low and the tanker will take longer than usual to fill up. When the overhead pipe is dry — this happened during September and early October — the tankers divert to the uMtamvuna reservoir and collect water there.

Each morning, Zondi and other drivers receive their orders for the day. Councillors call in information about areas with no water and the tankers are dispatched accordingly.

Zondi blasts his hooter to announce his arrival at  KwaXaba and residents pour into the street armed with buckets, repurposed cooking oil drums and five and 10 litre plastic containers.

No election posters are visible in the area.

(Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

Simon Masimula, who moved from Pretoria to KwaXaba two years ago after getting a job as a security guard in Margate, is among those filling containers at the tanker.

Masimula and his family normally get their water from a standpipe about 50 metres from their home.

Their tap has been dry for eight days.

“Our situation is very bad here. We have had no water for eight days. This water is not good because we can’t keep it for long. After some time, there are things at the bottom of the container,” Masimula said. “There is nowhere to buy water here, so I have to bring water home with me from work every day.”

Masimula is not registered to vote. “I only came here two years ago for the job. I’m still registered in Pretoria.” 

He said that by 22 October, none of the parties had campaigned in the village. “The politicians don’t come here. Maybe they forgot us.”

National and provincial governments have made interventions at Ugu in response to the worsening water crisis.

In January, Premier Sihle Zikalala announced a R150-billion provincial water master plan, which includes drilling boreholes in water scarce areas and building a number of new water schemes in the south and west of the province. Borehole drilling commenced in September.

Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu visited Ugu and other parts of KwaZulu-Natal during October and met the province and water authorities to look at how to improve water supply. Mchunu endorsed the provincial water plan, saying it would need to be tweaked and revised as time went on.

He said at the time that finishing incomplete water projects would be an immediate priority, as would assessing areas that needed intervention.

“At this moment, we have to pinpoint communities without water and ensure effective implementation of the plan,” Mchunu said.

He said a water and sanitation services charter would be implemented to ensure that municipalities delivered on their obligation to provide water. “The framework will be observed mainly by municipalities and we are looking forward to a more dynamic engagement, not only to try and understand the issues in the province, but rather to focus on the delivery of the essential services of water and sanitation.” 

Oliver Ransom, the chairperson of the South Coast Ratepayers Association, met water Mchunu and leaders of Umgeni Water Amanzi on 15 October along with a delegation from the South Coast to discuss how to address the water crisis.

According to a memorandum submitted to Mchunu by the association, parts of Ugu district municipality had only received water for six days a month, with the supply on the days when water was running being restricted to six hours a day.

The association also offered Mchunu the free services of a number of retired water engineers to assist with repairs to the water system.

At the meeting, Mchunu and Umgeni interim board chairperson Magasela Mzobe told the delegation that Umgeni would be taking over the water extraction at all of Ugu’s reservoirs, with the district municipality’s role becoming internal commercial and domestic water supply.

But the agreement had not been implemented because Ugu had not signed the agreement for the water protocol, which, along with investment in improving Eskom’s electricity supply to the area, was aimed at alleviating the situation, Ransom said.