Efforts are under way to improve the sewage system in Delmas in a bid to prevent a repeat of the recent typhoid outbreak, Mpumalanga authorities said on Tuesday.
It is hoped the preparations will be completed soon in order to replace the current bucket system, local government department spokesperson Simphiwe Kunene said.
He said the work started before the outbreak.
The bucket system is used in several parts of the province. Buckets containing human waste are disposed of by truck.
Kunene said Delmas forms part of a programme started earlier this year to replace the bucket system. Other municipalities targeted are Govan Mbeki, Msukaligwa, Albert Luthuli and Ditaleseng.
Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Buyelwa Sonjica, who visited Delmas on Monday, said a source of the typhoid outbreak, based on past problems, is the overloaded sewage system.
”This causes it to seep into the ground water that people are using,” she said. ”There is a lack of capacity at local government to manage ground water, and this is an issue that the department needs to look at.”
Provincial health spokesperson Mpho Gabashane said it is not yet known what caused the outbreak. Officials are awaiting the results from water tests, which will hopefully shed some light on the source.
The outbreak has also been blamed on ground water not being purified properly.
Gabashane said personnel from the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry will be deployed in about 10 days to assist the municipality’s water-purification programme.
Negotiations are also under way for Rand Water to supply the town with water permanently. Infrastructure will first have to be built.
Once negotiations are completed, the municipality will make a submission to the provincial government, Gabashane said. The provincial cabinet will have to approve the matter as it is extraordinary and has not been budgeted for.
Warning ‘rejected’
Democratic Alliance MP Dan Maluleke said a party councillor warned the Delmas municipality a few years ago that the municipality should be connected to Rand Water to allow for safe water.
”His warning was rejected as the council believed that Rand Water was too expensive, and they also felt the free underground water could be a source of easy income for the municipality,” he said.
Rand Water, the largest water utility in Africa, provides bulk potable water to a quarter of South Africans via metropolitan municipalities such as Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.
Rand Water spokesperson Mduduzi Nxasana said Delmas got some of its water from the Ekurhuleni metro council and a lake at the town. Water supply from the lake has been stopped.
Rand Water is sending tankers to the town to supply water.
Maluleke said Delmas and surrounding communities have also been getting their household water from boreholes.
”Repeated warnings about the overflow of raw sewerage from that area into the vlei and the resulting polluting effect on the underground water source were ignored,” he said.
Nurses sent to Delmas
Meanwhile, additional nurses were being sent to Delmas on Tuesday to assist the town’s overworked medical personnel. The nurses will staff a tent set up on Monday night to treat out-patients.
”The tent will be used to deal with the overflow from the [Delmas General] hospital. The tent is only for out-patients, like people who need to be rehydrated with drips,” Gabashane said.
One person has died and 287 cases of typhoid have been reported since the outbreak of the disease towards the end of August. More than 1 400 people have had diarrhoea.
Gabashane said health officials are continuing going door-to-door to educate the community on the early symptoms of typhoid.
Water is also still been transported to the town on a daily basis.
Maluleke said he will request the chairperson of Parliament’s portfolio committee on water affairs and forestry to send a fact-finding team to Delmas urgently.
”When they return, they must report back to the committee on the developments in the area.
”The Delmas municipal manager should then be called to appear before the committee to explain how an underground water source had become contaminated to the extent that this typhoid outbreak occurred.”
He said he will also ask Sonjica whether a water board has been established for the area, as required by the Water Resources Act.
The board is required to ensure the supply of safe potable water and take steps to prevent any outbreak of diseases such as typhoid. — Sapa