Democratic Alliance (DA) caucus leader George Henderson said it is absolutely shocking that people have to deal with the ongoing water crisis.
“Ugu just cannot get it right, they are struggling and cannot cope. They are failing the people, how can you come on holiday and not have water?”
Henderson said the DA has pleaded with Ugu and has tried to sit down with the leaders to ask them what they can do to help.
Residents are also fed up and have lost patience with Ugu.
Nompumelelo Tau lives in Gauteng but owns a home in Umtentweni.
When she visits for a weekend or holidays she experiences the same problem.
“I get up every morning to take a shower but there is no water. The worst thing is that they don’t give us an update on when the water will be shut off and turned on again.”
A resident from Merlewood, Makhosi Dlezi said that on Tuesday this week an Ugu water tanker came into the area but it looked like it was lost.
“We took out containers to fill up but the truck left without giving us a drop,” she added.
Another resident from Nyandezulu, Sthandiwe Madlebe said she has not had water for a month and has to drive to another area to fetch water.
Ugu spokesman France Zama said with the R19 million grant funding given to the municipality by Cogta to upgrade St Helen’s Rock waterworks, they are certain that areas under Ray Nkonyeni Municipality will never experience water supply disruptions.
“About R4 million from this grant has been allocated for the drilling of boreholes in Umzumbe and Umuziwabantu local municipalities.”
However the question remains – is R19 million sufficient to sort out Ugu’s problems?
According to Henderson a lot of issues need to be fixed at Ugu. He mentioned that the municipal manager’s position has been vacant for at least a year now, and one of the questions that they have is why has Ugu not appointed one as yet.
Vijay Naidoo, the CEO of the Port Shepstone Business Forum said it has not been smooth operations for small businesses.
“Businesses had to spend extra money to pay for water so they could run their businesses. A lot of them have been affected, if you have 20 employees you cannot have all of them at work when there is no water.”
He added that there is only so much that a business owner can spend on buying water.
“This is really alarming and serious because business owners have to spend extra money.”
Economic Freedom Fighters spokesperson Ncedo Njenga said they do not believe that people are getting rusty water because of the pipelines, but because of someone somewhere who is not doing his job.
“There are people who are supposed to be in charge of purifying the water, why would they allow such water to be given to people?”
The EFF will also demand Ugu get their water tested in other labs to see if the results come back the same – if the water is suitable for human consumption.
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