DA mayoral candidate Retief Odendaal, along with ward councillor Dries van der Westhuizen, explaining their water dossier, which outlines a detailed plan on how to turn the water crisis around. This document was submitted to the mayor, city manager and National Department of Water and Sanitation. (Photo: Riaan Marais) About two weeks ago, a mother from Kariega had to tell her three-year-old daughter that the birthday party she was looking forward to could not happen, because there was no water at their house.
She had to phone friends and family to tell them the party was postponed when, on the morning of the event, they woke up to find their taps were dry.
“It broke my heart to tell my daughter we had to postpone her party, but I can’t have friends and family over if I can’t even flush my toilets,” Natasha Gouws said.
“Being without water is becoming a regular inconvenience, but after seeing my daughter try her best to hold back tears when I told her the party was off, just made me completely gatvol.”
Her story is just one of many from Nelson Mandela Bay residents who have felt the frustration and anger of standing at a dry tap in their own homes.
In Lorraine, Gqeberha Jean Pitout sits on the body corporate of Macon Road housing complex.
He said after heavy rain in May caused localised flooding and infrastructure damage in parts of the metro, residents in their complex and the surrounding suburb were without water for nearly two weeks.
“I’m lucky that my unit has water tanks, so I was able to scrape by for two weeks on what I had stored. But not everyone is that lucky. We have elderly people, and families with small children, living in our complex. I don’t know how these people managed without water for so long,” Pitout said.
Complaints unanswered
His frustration was compounded by the fact that water-related queries to the municipal call centres go unanswered, or their community Whatsapp groups receive “copy and paste” responses that never fully explain the extent of the problem.
“It’s the same message that gets sent to everyone, they just replace the suburbs. And all it ever says is: we are investigating.
“There are all these so-called ‘investigations’ but never any findings. How can we believe these messages if there is a new water outage every other week?”
Pitout was concerned that constant water outages could influence the market value of property in the area as the availability of water was a recurring question from people looking to buy or rent property in Lorraine.
“I’ve had people ask me about property in the area, and on more than one occasion someone asked if the water problems in Lorraine have been sorted. It is becoming a deterrent for prospective residents,” Pitout said.
/file/attachments/orphans/Despatchleak1_922634_917378.jpg "A massive water leak was discovered recently on the outskirts of Despatch. Just days before, municipal contractors worked on the same pipeline. It's unclear when the pipeline started leaking and how much water was wasted, but parts of Despatch were left with dry taps shortly thereafter. (Photo: Supplied)")
In Greenbushes, Rosalind Pienaar likened opening the taps at her home to gambling.
“On any given day it’s luck of the draw whether you will have water or not. And if you have, will it be clean, brown, or milky white and smelling of chlorine?”
She said over the last two weeks her home was without water for four days, and the outages came without warning.
“Besides the impact it has on people, many of our neighbours have livestock that need drinking water, as well. It’s becoming increasingly frustrating,” Pienaar added.
Handover of ‘water crisis plan’
On Thursday, DA mayoral candidate for NMB Retief Odendaal approached the offices of the mayor and city manager to hand over a “water crisis dossier” that outlines some of the biggest issues facing the city’s water infrastructure, with possible solutions to these problems.
“I have also written to the mayor and acting city manager to impress on them the urgency of addressing the crisis and highlighted immediate interventions.
“On any given day, an estimated 100,000 residents are left without water, even though the metro’s dams are currently overflowing. This crisis is not one of water availability, but of failing infrastructure, inadequate maintenance, and severe shortages of technical capacity.”
According to Odendaal, since 7 May the municipality has issued 57 notices of water interruptions on its official Facebook page, non-revenue water usage stood at 60% during the 2024/25 financial year, and the city had more than 7,000 unresolved leaks.
/file/attachments/orphans/StGeorgesboreholes1_446044.jpg "The St George's Wellfield in Gqeberha was completed in March 2023 and cost Nelson Mandela Bay R46-million. Yet the project meant to provide two million litres to the city's water supply, has been offline for more than a year. (Photo: DA Nelson Mandela Bay)")
He further explained that in several instances the city installed “straight connections” to bypass metres where faults occurred, and many of these temporary fixes were never revisited, further exacerbating the unmetered water use.
Odendaal said he has been communicating with the mayor’s office throughout the growing crisis. Since mid-January he has written to the Minister of Water and Sanitation on no less than 11 occasions, requesting urgent intervention from national government, to no avail.
“We are not sitting with a drought crisis, because our dams are full and some are even overflowing. We are not sitting with a funding crisis, because millions of rands in conditional grant funding and equitable share has been sent back because it was not spent.
Water skills deficit
“What we have here is a skills deficit and shortage of engineers, artisans and plumbers that are required to do and oversee the maintenance required on the water system.”
Dries van der Westhuizen, a DA ward councillor and former MMC for infrastructure and engineering, expanded on Odendaal’s statement, saying that while the city had very competent engineers, there were too few to address the growing water crisis.
Odendaal said information from within the water services department indicated an alarming 64% vacancy rate in crucial positions.
“The problem I believe is two-fold. I don’t know when the last time was that I saw the municipality advertise any positions in that department. And if they did, I think many qualified people have lost interest in applying for positions in such an ailing department.”
One of these vacancies included a permanent Executive Director for Water Services.
He said filling these positions would go a long way towards restoring offline borehole schemes like the St George’s Well Field, accelerating maintenance at treatment plants such as Nooitgedacht and Kabah, and fast-tracking repairs of leaks and underperforming reservoirs.
“There were recent media reports where even the acting city manager said: hang on, we need help.
“Until these crucial positions are filled, the national department must step in and urgently second experienced technical professionals to support the metro in addressing this deepening water crisis,” Odendaal said.
Odendaal delivered hard copies of his dossier on the water crisis to the mayor and city manager’s team, while emailing copies via email to the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Pemmy Majodina, the Eastern Cape MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Zolile Williams, and the South African Human Rights Commission.
Municipal spokesman Sithembiso Soyaya did not respond to a request for a response to the DA’s letter. DM