Community members from Buntingville Village in Ngqeleni are worried about their health as they are forced to use water filled with sewage when drinking and cooking.
According to one of the community members, Sikhumbuzo Manitshana, this sewage is coming from Buntingville Senior Secondary School in Ngqeleni.
He said, in 2018, the Department of Education promised that it would solve this matter but nothing has changed and the community’s health is suffering as a result.
Manitshana added they used to get water from the OR Tambo District Municipality but it stopped doing so last year.
“We don’t know what happened (to the supply of clean water) because there has been no explanation (from the municipality),” said Manitshana.
“Now the community members are forced to fetch water from this river because they don’t have a choice. There are people who are less fortunate, who are forced to use this water because they cannot afford to buy tanks for their homes,” said Manitshana.
He said the municipality had installed 10 tanks in this area but all of them were empty now. He added that they appealed to the municipality to assist them with clean water, and the department to solve the sewage issue.
OR Tambo District Municipality spokesperson, Zimkitha Macingwane, said they apologised to all the community members who had been affected by this.
Macingwane said they were doing all they could, as the district municipality, to intervene where they could.
“The acting municipality manager for the OR Tambo District Municipality, Nyameka Mnyanda, together with the Department of Water and Sanitation, are working tirelessly to explore short-, medium- and long-term interventions.
“Our short-term interventions are to ensure that our water tankers that we bought in June have fuel cards so that we could fuel them and get water through our water cutting system to our communities that are affected,” said Macingwane.
Department of Education spokesperson, Malibongwe Mtima, said the Department was aware of the matter and actions to address it were at an advanced stage.
“Furthermore, due to the sensitivity of the matter, Amathole Water was roped in to provide technical support and as such the department is in the process of implementing their recommendations to address the matter,” said Mtima.
