Cape Town - Without running water for nearly two weeks, Beaufort West residents are at their wits’ end and say the measures their municipality has put in place to address the situation are not sufficient.
The municipality scheduled a community meeting that was to take place last night, addressing the water crisis as an agenda point.
Resident Mayvie Johnson said the unhygienic state in which residents had to live reminded them of the drought about five years ago.
“The situation is dire. People cannot live like this. It is a highly frustrating situation that the municipality cannot seem to solve. They have put water tankers in the area, but this only services certain areas, and sometimes not all of the people can get water.
“It is disgraceful that we have to beg for water. We have to boil the water to make sure it is safe for consumption, which becomes expensive, because where must we get electricity?
“We can’t wash with the water we get from the tankers; it is used for consumption and to make food.”
Johnson said the municipality has evaded questions around the generator donated to it to assist with pumping water during load shedding.
“They have a generator donated by the provincial department (of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning), which we believe is not working at the moment. Why is it not being fixed to mitigate this situation?
“Our people have to compete with soaring temperatures and not being able to flush toilets in our homes.
The heat builds up in the house and the stench hangs in the air. You make food and flies are all around breeding in the unhygienic conditions,” said Johnson.
Community activist Ernest Beyers said residents had been without water for about 10 days.
“Business people have assisted with water distribution in the affected areas.
There is no water at the hostels, where there are about 200 children. How will they use the toilet facilities? Their food also has to be prepared,” said Beyers.
“We call on the municipality to make a plan urgently.”
The Beaufort West Municipality did not respond to Cape Times enquiries, but posted on social media that the municipality was solely dependent on boreholes and the Reclamation Plant.
Last week, the municipality said it would be distributing water with tankers.
“The municipality is alive to the challenges communities are facing because of limited or no water from the taps. The current water strain on communities is a result of the higher stages of electricity load shedding.”
Local government MEC Anton Bredell said: “BWM has been a beneficiary of our support. When their generator required repairs in December, I facilitated the deployment of an additional generator to BWM to ensure the impact of load shedding is minimised. I have been informed that while in use, the generator broke down, which required repairs.
“I cannot comment on the specific repairs required, but the current prolonged load-shedding schedules are creating numerous technical challenges for municipal infrastructure installations across the province.
“My department will continue to work with all municipalities to ensure the impact of load shedding on municipal services is adequately mitigated.”
Cape Times