Khayelitsha residents decided to take to the streets this week, before the country entered into a 21-day lockdown period.
“I
fetch water from the nearby dam each morning and evening for my
household of six people,” says Ndileka Mabusela, who lives in
Khayelitsha. “My children are ill and need clean water to take their
medication daily.”
We boil the water before we use it for bathing, cooking and drinking,” says the 47-year-old mother of seven.
Mabusela’s home is the Makaza region of the Khayelitsha township in Cape Town. The area contains a high number of informal settlements, RDP houses, and informal backyard dwellers.
She
is one of dozens of residents who picketed outside the Cape Town Civic
Centre over a lack of water. Residents decided to take to the streets
this week, before the country entered into a 21-day lockdown period.
Mabusela and around 100 other households in the area had their water cut off due to account debt.
As
the country prepares to go into lockdown, residents fear that they may
be at a higher risk of contracting Covid-19. This could impede
government’s attempts to flatten the curve to contain the spread of the
coronavirus and avoid a health crisis.
In
a statement, the residents said: “There are high rates of poverty,
unemployment and crime. We live in cramped homes without space to
self-isolate or effectively practise social distancing. We already
experience unsanitary conditions with drain blockages where raw sewage
spills into the streets and spaces where children play.”
The Western Cape has so far recorded the second-highest number of cases of Covid-19 in the country, with 229 out of 927 nationwide cases by Thursday.
For
Mabusela and other residents of Khayelitsha, whose water has been cut
off, governments’ messages to increase hand-washing in the face of the
pandemic are futile without water in their homes.
“I am unemployed and I live in the township. Where will I get the money to make payments?” she asks.
Last
Friday, the city of Cape Town announced that it would temporarily
suspend water restrictions for residents whose municipal accounts were
in arrears. Mabusela,
however, says the city’s officials advised her that her water would only
be switched back on once she arranges a repayment plan to settle her
debt.
Mayoral
committee member for finance Ian Neilson said that it is still unclear
whether residents have no water because of lack of water supply or water
interruptions, if the water pressure is playing a role, or if the
customers have been restricted to a running trickle-flow of water due to
municipal debt.
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“In
general, if water is restricted, it is done to a running trickle-flow
of water, which means that one can wash hands with soap and rinse it
with the trickle,” he said.
“There is no need to protest.”
Xanthea
Limberg, a mayoral committee member for water and waste, told the group
of protestors that the city is looking into providing residents with
water tanks as an interim measure. Limberg did not, however, indicate
when the tanks would be provided.
In
the meantime the national department of water and sanitation has
identified 2 000 informal settlements that require water and sanitation
services during the lockdown period. Water tankers will be distributed across communities in need.
Thando Maeko is an Adamela Trust business reporter at the M&G