State urged to tackle water crisis

The government is violating women’s rights by failing to tackle the water supply crisis in parts of the old Transkei, Sonke Gender Justice says.

Sonke Eastern Cape manager Patrick Godwana said on Friday that the dire water situation in Butterworth’s Ward 17 and in the Mbashe-Dutywa area was crippling communities and the worst hit were women and girls, who were usually tasked with securing water.

“The impact ranges from one of sanitation [for women], to one of crime, where they have to travel long distances on foot to access water during which they are vulnerable to robbery and rape,” he said.

In Ward 3 in the Mbashe-Dutywa area, taps in about 25 villages had run dry.

“Women harvest stagnant water from an abandoned quarry near Gqupu village.”

In Ward 17 in the Butterworth area, the situation in about seven villages was just as dire, Godwana said.

“People in the villages there were relying on rainwater in the erosion dongas but that resource has run dry.

“Now the women from Nqamakwe, for instance, have to travel 7-10km on foot to another village where there is a tap where the water comes out in drips on and off.”

The lack of water in both Mbashe and Butterworth was hitting schools.

While the drought played a role in the crisis, it was more a question of efficient and ethical management by the Amathole District Municipality, which was in charge of water supply in both areas, he said.

“If they could at least truck water to a certain point, that would at least show that government cares.”

The possibility of boreholes also needed to be urgently considered and in Butterworth the possibility of laying pipes and a pump to access water from the Xilinxa Dam, Godwana said.

“None of these alternatives is being seriously addressed and by failing to do so government is violating the constitutional and fundamental right of communities to water.”

Amathole District Municipality spokesperson Nonceba Madikizela-Vuso said drought was a major aspect of the water problems in the district, as well as illegal connections and vandalism of infrastructure.

The biggest concern was the potential crisis in Butterworth, in the Mnquma Local Municipality area.

“The main supply dam, Xilinxa, is only 4% full, with only enough water for a month.

“There are no alternative sources for Butterworth and it will be extremely difficult and costly to tanker in water.”

Dams that supplied Dutywa in Mbashe had also run dry.

Boreholes were being used to supply a little water, but they could only supply a small amount of the daily demand.

Other areas affected in Mbashe were the villages supplied by the Qwaninga and Dwesa rural water supply schemes, she said.

“The rivers which supply these schemes have dried up.

“This affects about 40 rural villages. The district municipality is carting water by road, where feasible, but in Dwesa and Qwaninga the number and remoteness of villages makes it almost impossible.”