Water crisis hits municipality

2008-01-04 22:20

Johannesburg - Residents in the Mkhondo Municipality of Mpumalanga are worried that sporadic water shortages in the area could lead to a cholera outbreak.

Rob Thomas, one of the affected residents, said people living in Amsterdam, Piet Retief and other surrounding areas in Mkhondo, had been experiencing water shortages since the beginning of December.

"Water has been on and off for the last four weeks and in the last three days residents have been without water at all," he said.

The dire situation had forced some of the residents to draw water from the nearby river.

"Some of the more lucky residents are utilising rain tanks, but the nearby township is not so lucky and residents there are drawing water from the river, allowing for the potential of a waterborne disease spreading throughout a town of nearly 20 000 residents," Thomas said.

Locals had not been told the reason behind the council's water cuts.

"If you approach them [the municipality] they will tell you that the shortage is due to electricity failure - then the same people will also tell you that it's because the nearby dam had gone dry.

"As a result residents are in the dark because officials keep changing their story," he said.

However, Mkhondo Municipality asset manager Henk Nel denied that the council had been misleading residents on the reasons behind the water shortages.

"We have been consistent in saying that the shortage was caused by wastefulness. Some of the residents use large amounts on watering their gardens and filling up their pools.

"The problem had been made worse by the fact that there have been no rains in the areas for more than four weeks."

However, Nel said the council was working on the problems and that a solution would soon be found.

In 2005, a outbreak of typhoid in Delmas left five people dead and 3 346 others diagnosed with waterborne diseases such as cholera.

- SAPA