Nelson Mandela Bay left high and dry

Gatvol!

That is how residents and business owners feel as large parts of Nelson Mandela Bay continue to struggle without water after almost a week.

The seething residents are now questioning if the water outages and constant load-shedding is the “new normal”.

After a week of intermittent water supply to the city’s western and northern areas, residents received some relief on Monday morning — but only briefly.

The metro has been struggling with water shortages since Tuesday last week as a result of a burst pipe at the Nooitgedacht water scheme.

Nooitgedacht then experienced electricity faults on Friday, Sunday and Monday.

Subsequent power outages at stations such as one in Motherwell further delayed the steady supply of water.

Shiraz Afzal, who owns Afzal’s Unisex Hair Salon at the Linton Arcade Centre, said he had to cut back on the number of customers.

“I have had to turn people away since Thursday,” he said, adding that only people who needed a cut or trim could be assisted.

He has resorted to buying bottled water for his shop.

“I am essentially losing money.”

Lavender Laundromat manager Sindy Siyotywa said they had been forced to turn customers away on Monday.

The laundromat is also at the Linton Arcade Centre.

“I have had to turn away more than five customers,” Siyotywa said.

Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber CEO Nomkhita Mona said a number of businesses had been negatively affected by the water supply problem.

“It is completely unacceptable that the business community and residents of Nelson Mandela Bay have been placed in this situation,” she said.

“The city mothers and fathers in the municipal council should hang their heads in shame for their failure to provide oversight and leadership in this regard.

“It is disingenuous and irrational to encourage paying customers — businesses as well as households — to continue to reduce consumption when the excessive volume of water lost to leaks is still not declining at a significant rate.”

Mona said repeated offers from the chamber’s members to assist with leak repairs and expertise remained on the table.

“This water crisis only adds to the obstacles that local businesses must now face, which include surviving an economic recession, a national lockdown and load-shedding.”

On Monday morning, minutes after the municipality issued a notice saying that the water supply system from Nooitgedacht had recovered, resulting in the reticulated system being filled, a second notice was sent saying the supply had been stopped.

“The water and sanitation department has just been informed of another electricity outage at Nooitgedacht and all water treatment had to be stopped,” it said.

The water supply was restored to some parts of the metro by lunchtime, but others will take longer as the reservoirs slowly fill up.

Before the power failure on Monday, the Chelsea reservoir was at 13%. However, the level quickly dropped to 9% after the morning demand.

According to the municipal statement, the intermittent water supply will continue for the next few days as the system recovers.

Infrastructure and engineering political boss Mongameli Bobani said the water outages were beyond the municipality’s control.

“This is not a man-made issue,” Bobani said.

“People have been affected in several areas, including those not supplied by Nooitgedacht as the reservoirs are dropping fast.”

He urged residents to use water sparingly as the daily consumption rate still sat at 290 megalitres a day.

“This rate needs to drop to 260ML. We don’t have enough water for our people.”

He said the latest electricity problem at Nooitegadacht had been fixed at 11am. 

The Chelsea reservoir, which continued to drop to 7%, had improved to 11% after 11am.

The municipality has its hopes pinned on the Nooitgedacht water scheme as the ultimate solution to the drought.

But the expansion of the scheme, which would give the city about 200Ml additional water a day, is only due to be completed in July.

While one-third of the Bay’s water comes from the dams on the western side of the metro, two-thirds come from Nooitgedacht, situated near Addo, which is supplied by the Orange River via the Gariep Dam.

From the Gariep, the water is channelled over 400km via the Fish and Sundays rivers and interlinked tunnels, canals and smaller dams to Nooitgedacht.

The Bay’s catchment dams were at a combined 18.91% on Monday.

Municipal spokesperson Mamela Ndamase said various factors contributed to the problems at Nooitgedacht, including a burst bulk pipe and electricity failures.

“We also experienced load-shedding which compounded the problem.”

A major gripe of Malabar residents is that the water tankers run dry within a few minutes of their arrival.

Nokuphiwo Ndabambi, 39, said you had to keep your eyes peeled for a water truck.

“They run out of water so fast and, if you miss them, you have to wait hours for them to return.”

Ndabambi said she managed to collect about 50 litres of water a day from the truck.

“I do prefer to boil the water first before drinking and cooking because of its colour [brown].”

The area has not had a constant supply of water since August 27, according to the residents.

Pastor Lenny Moodley, who also lives in Malabar, said the municipality had failed the residents.

“We can’t stay clean. I’m just worried about the day when even the trucks don’t come,” he said.

On the other side of the city, Lorraine resident Sharon Jessop had her first shower on Sunday after being without water since Wednesday.

She managed to fill a 5l bottle of water on Friday.

“But it smelt and tasted awful. It looked like fizzy soda.”

Businessman Morné Rossouw, who lives in Kabega Park, started an online petition on Friday due to the water outages and it quickly gained traction, garnering 4,493 signatures by Monday evening.

“It is time to act against the complete and utter disregard for the rights of the residents of the municipality,” his petition read.

Rossouw hopes the national government will see the petition and act against municipal staff for a slew of service delivery failures.

“The time is now to make the members of the municipality responsible for their actions or non-actions and take them to task,” he said.

Rossouw said later he hoped to galvanise enough residents to start something similar to the Move One Million movement, which is a protest movement against corruption.

“If we can get one million voices to say the same thing, the government must surely listen and get rid of the people not doing their jobs.

“I don’t want to move mountains, I just want service,” he said.

Rossouw said he’d had enough when he saw an 80-year-old woman queuing for brown-coloured water in Kabega Park.

“This is not a political thing.

“It is purely to get enough people speaking.”

Nelson Mandela Bay Ratepayers’ Association chair Kobus Gerber said the issues at Nooitgedacht showed how precarious the water situation was.

“I warned four years ago that we would get to this point and, since then, no proper maintenance has taken place on the existing infrastructure.”

Gerber said he had also urged residents years ago to ensure they had water tanks on their properties.

“We have a dysfunctional municipality without an actual mayor, which adds a political disaster to the fold.”

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