Fifth day without water for Uitenhage, Despatch

The water outage affecting large parts of Uitenhage and Despatch entered the fifth day on Friday.

The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality said, in a statement on Friday morning, that repair teams were back on site.

“[They are] working under restrictive conditions. We will be working the whole day,” municipal spokesman Mthubanzi Mniki said.

On Monday, as a team of contractors were working to repair one of the main water pipelines, a contract worker died as a trench had filled with water.

This delayed the fixing of the pipeline, with the municipality saying on Thursday that the team was only able to work in daylight.

DA councillor Masixole Zinto said in a statement on Friday: “The department only released the site yesterday afternoon and prohibited workers from working last night.

“This determination sets a dangerous precedent as prohibiting emergency work at night will create massive service delivery issues in future.

“Water is a basic human right and denying residents access to running water is therefore a gross violation of these rights.

“Although water tankers were made available by the municipality, these were not nearly enough. In future the metro should look to neighbouring municipalities to assist in providing additional water trucks.”

Areas affected by the supply disruptions include: Nelson Mandela Bay Logistics Park, Van Riebeeck Hoogte, Valleisig, Scheepershoogte, Fairbridge Heights, Strelitzia Park, Winterhoek Park, Vanes Estate, Levyvale, Janssendal, Mosel, Penford and College Hill.