METRO MATTERS | Bethelsdorp family concerned about faulty water junction box

The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality has given itself  until today to fix a water junction box  in Bethelsdorp that has resulted in streams of clean water flowing down Fember Street since last month.

This comes after a family in Bethelsdorp claims to have desperately tried to get help from the municipality after the water junction box station next to the main gate in their yard started leaking in about mid-January. . 

Water junction boxes provide a location for the quick connection of wiring in a pump or water meter reader — or any other electrical installation.

Brendan Kiewiets, who reported the matter to Metro Matters, said

the leak had been reported to the municipality numerous times, to no avail.

“I don’t know how many times I have phoned the call centre and every day it’s always the same story that they will send someone to fix the leak,” he said.

Kiewiets’s daughter, Justine, 24, said she was always at home and no municipal worker had ever come to address the leak.

“I’m always at home and when we call it’s either we’re told that someone is coming, or some tell us it might take up to nine months to get the leak fixed,” she said.

“They [the municipality] can’t preach to us that we must save water or there is no water when every day litres of clean water stream down the street.”    

She said the family wanted to fix the leak but could not as the junction box was municipal property.

When Metro Matters inquired about the matter with the municipality, municipal spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki said a team had been dispatched to the affected area.

“The leaks will be followed up as well, we hope to have sorted them out by Monday,” Mniki said.