THE Democratic Alliance has laid criminal charges against the Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM) for failing to address the longstanding water and sanitation crisis across the district.
After doing an oversight at several water and sanitation facilities within the six municipalities that resort under CHDM, DA constituency leaders Retief Ondendaal and Jane Cowley laid criminal charges against the Municipal Manager of the CHDM, Mr Gcobani Mashiyi, at the Komani Police Station with regard to this crisis. The charges relate to Section 151 (1) of the National Water Act 36 of 1998.
A lack of sufficient capital budget to do maintenance on ageing infrastructure or build new infrastructure, a shortage of sufficient human resources to deal with daily supply interruptions and a lack of capacity to deal with emergency situations has led to a humanitarian and environmental crisis that is already spinning out of control.
“There is currently not a single waste water treatment plant within CHDM control that is not totally dysfunctional or dealing with serious malfunctions,” said Odendaal.
“The Great Fish River, Great Kei River and several tributaries to and from these rivers are being polluted by raw sewage, posing serious threats to health and economy in the Eastern Cape.”
Odendaal recently called on the Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, Lindiwe Sisulu, to establish a Water Services Committee to take over the provision of water and sanitation from CHDM.
“In spite of the escalating crisis I have not received a reply from Minister Sisulu,” Odendaal said.
“We have recorded video footage and taken pictures of how the municipality is failing in its duties. The recording and pictures will be added to a dossier, which will include affidavits by myself and MPL Cowley, and sent to Minister Sisulu,” Odendaal said.
“The water and sanitation situation in Middelburg, is a very serious threat to all, especially in the light of the Corona virus on our doorstep,” said Joe Newton, chairman of the Middelburg Forum.
Ken Clark, chairman of Let’s Talk Komani, said the organisation is apolitical, non-partisan and therefore not part of the action undertaken by the DA. They are pursuing their own application to the High Court.
Bulelwa Ganyaza, senior manager of communication, customer care and stakeholder management for CHDM, commented that the district had no knowledge of the criminal charges referred to and were unable to comment on the matter as they were not privy to the information.
Komani-Karoo Express wanted to know what CHDM is doing to ensure all areas have water in light of the Corona virus threat, which requires stringent personal hygiene.
“The district recognises the significance of water provision in curbing the spread of Corona virus and as such we have put in place measures to ensure that it is contained and our communities have access to clean water despite the challenges we face,” Ganyaza said.
She continued by indicating that the municipality has on-going operations and a maintenance programme is being implemented, while water is hauled to areas that experience interruptions due to system failure or with infrastructure backlogs.
