The Democratic Alliance (DA) successfully engaged with COGTA’s MEC, Zolile Williams, yesterday to discuss the ongoing water crisis in the Makana municipality.
Makhanda has been battling with water demand exceeding supply, ageing infrastructure, excessive leaks, and pipe bursts, which have resulted in major water losses. As a result, the town has been on a water rationing system, with sections closed off at night to ensure that reservoirs recharge.
However, the situation was exacerbated recently when cuts to overtime resulted in workers not working overtime from 23 August, which led to the collapse of the supply system and the inability to supply water to many areas.
Currently, even though there is some improvement in the water supply, the Waainek Scheme on the Western side of Makhanda is still struggling to recharge and stabilise the water supply, which is resulting in some areas on the Western side not receiving water.
The DA welcomes MEC Williams’s commitment to implement support under Section 154 of the constitution to deploy technical and financial capacity in the municipality starting Monday next week.
Support under Section 154 typically involves deploying experts or teams to assess and address municipalities’ specific issues, such as financial mismanagement, infrastructure failures, or service delivery problems.
During this meeting, the DA delegation also secured the MEC’s commitment to finding long-term, sustainable solutions to the problems facing Makana residents and welcomed input in terms of a turnaround strategy for the municipality.
We appreciate the MEC agreeing to meet and discuss viable interventions that could be implemented and for committing to establishing platforms for ongoing discussions around local government issues going forward.
The DA, as the official opposition, is committed to working with the government to offer our ideas and solutions to the myriad challenges our people face, while fulfilling our duty in holding the executive to account.
This is how we move the Eastern Cape forward and ensure that we contribute to bringing change to our people.
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