The ever-looming Day Zero has been averted in Makana Municipality.
This is according to co-operative governance spokesperson Mamkeli Ngam, who said the water-scarce municipality had stabilised, despite some of its dam levels remaining critically low.
This comes just a few weeks before thousands of art lovers descend on the university town for the annual National Arts Festival, which runs between June 27 and July 7.
A meeting in Makhanda last week, which declared that the worst was over, was attended by stakeholders from the municipality, co-operative governance, the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agency, the department of water and sanitation, Amatola Water, Gift of the Givers, the office of the premier, the provincial treasury and Rhodes University, Ngam said.
Ngam said that during the meeting, provincial water and sanitation head Portia Makhanya reported: “The water situation in Makana is now stable, despite the dam levels in the western side of town remaining critically low.”
He said Makana acting municipal manager Riana Meiring had also told the meeting: “The water quality is now guaranteed. Both Waainek and James Kleynhans water treatment works are fully functional.”
Meiring, Ngam said, also told the meeting that water supply would continue.
Meanwhile, Gift of the Givers, which has for several months provided water and vital infrastructure to the crippled Makana municipality, said it would soon be compensated for the work it had done in the area.
Earlier in May, the charity pulled its services out of Makana, saying the government was paying private contractors R10m to do work similar to that for which they had received not a cent.
The organisation’s head, Imtiaz Sooliman, had previously said the charity had spent R15m of its own money in good faith to drill boreholes urgently so that people in Makana – who had been without piped water for weeks – could access clean water.
At the time, the government apparently refused to pay anything to the organisation.
However, on Thursday, Sooliman said: “Gift of the Givers will be compensated to some extent.”
Since there was apparently no longer a crisis in Makhanda, he said, the charity would begin a total withdrawal.