Water pipe still unfixed after 8 months!
Two bickering government departments have refused to fix a broken water pipe in East London which has disgorged millions of litres of drinking water in eight months, writes Bongani Fuzile.
The Department of Public Works and Buffalo City Municipality have spent months blaming each other for the problem and refusing to take responsibility.
During this time a dam of water has built up on a piece of land near the SPCA where the burst pipe can be found.
The wastage has been allowed to continue despite crippling droughts in parts of Amathole district, like on the East Coast Resorts, not far from East London.
The pipe has been leaking since March and attempts to get someone to fix it has been a painful exercise for the residents of Summerpride, who live nearby.
This week, resident Lawrence Louw phoned the Daily Dispatch to complain, saying they were desperate to save the water pumping out of the ground.
“We are trying to be good citizens here. We are reporting a broken pipe that has seen millions of litres of water being lost while the country is running dry. But the response we receive is not what we expect,” said Louw.
On Tuesday, the Dispatch visited the site and saw clean water running down to a nearby stream.
To test how much water was flowing out of the pipe, the Dispatch team filled a two litre bottle in 16 seconds.
Although by no means scientific, the figures suggest as much as 2.5 million litres have been wasted since residents first noticed the problem.
“This is something that could have been fixed a long time ago. This is treated water and it costs thousands of rands to treat water and now no one cares if there is a leakage,” said Louw.
Another resident, Kobus van Jaarsveld, said they had contacted Public Works to report the leakage, but nothing had been done.
“This is really a crisis. They should have at least stopped it even if it doesn’t belong to them. This is a waste of precious water,” said Van Jaarsveld.
BCM spokesperson Samkelo Ngwenya insisted Public Works should fix the problem.
“We were made aware of this problem and told the department to fix it. We will give them a last letter this week and if they don’t fix the problem, we will do the job and claim our money back,” said Ngwenya.
Public Works spokesperson Jason Lloyd said he would investigate the matter. “It doesn’t make sense to say it’s Public Works’ duty to do the job, but I will investigate this and come back to you,” said Lloyd.
Department of Water Affairs spokesperson Mandilakhe Zenzile said they would also investigate.
“We are promising that we will investigate this and if the place is privately owned we will get hold of the owners.
“We are calling on communities and consumers to immediately report all matters relating to burst water pipes and water leakages to the department (of Water Affairs),” said Zenzile.
Unreal. Who do you think should be held accountable for this fiasco? And should those responsible be made to pay for all the water lost in the process? Blog now and tell us what you think.
13 Comments Already, Leave Yours Too
Bloody hell! This is a case of ‘everybody thought somebody would fix it, and as a result, nobody has fixed it.’ People arepaid to do jobs, but these days, it seems like any municipal position is a surefire way of securing a seat on the gravy train, because if work is not done to standard, or not done at all, perpetrators aren’t fired, but rather transferred to other departments, where the same scenario plays out again and again. And at whose expense? The bloody taxpayer – yet again!
All the departments will investigate but sadly that is all they will do. What about all the precious water being wasted while all these useless investigations take place. Shelve the investigations and just FIX IT. All these people know how to do is attend meetings.
And we are faced with a water shortage?
What a contridiction, the story above this one says that we are facing a water crisis, but then the story below it is about this pipe that hasnt been fixed for 8 months and leaked millions of litres of water!! Maybe if things like this were seen to earlier the we wouldnt have crisises!!! I dont understand it!!!
They are having meetings. That’s how they solve anything – sit at a posh hotel (like Halyards!) eat drink talk rubbish and do nothing pro active about the problem at large. then go back to hotel room and have a 35 minute shower.
Who pays?
Even being kind and discounting the Dispatch estimate to 2 million litres (or 2000 kilolitres) over eight months, that comes out to be around 25 kilolitres a month.
The municipal domestic tariff for water is R10.80 per kilolitre for consumption of between 21 and 30kl/month. which would rack up a bill of nearly R22 000.
So who pays?
Dock it off the pay of the person in charge of the city engineer’s department. Perhaps then things will take a bit faster than eight months of dickying about.
Mike, you have it all wrong…why should the dock it from their pay when there are taxpayers who they can screw over instead? (insert sarcasm here). Not many people who have are employed by the municipality/local authorites can actually say that they work there, because if they did actually work, matters like this certainly wouldn’t take 8 months or more to fix. Mind you, they are probably still having meetings to discuss who they can pass the buck to, instead of actually doing the bloody job that they are paid to do in the first place. A wise man once summed it up very well. He stated that ‘if one word could be used to describe the most inappropriate use of, and waste, of time, that word would be “meetings.” ‘
Yeah, I agree with so many posters here, our government knows how to talk about things but don’t know how to get the job done in reality. I’ll never forget an installation I did at the department of public works building in Bisho in 1994 – the place was empty for the first week – I was told it is always like that the rest of the week following payday. The following week, people were back at work but I couldn’t see ANYONE working – they were loafing and eating take-aways in each others offices. The one guy even commented on our work (in isiXhosa) – that we were obviously getting an early completion bonus cos we were working so hard. At the time I was earning R1000 a month – likely 10 or more times less than he was earning to eat chicken and sit around all day. We found one woman asleep at her desk all day and even set the ladder up every time we walked past it to see if she was still asleep (by peeping in the glass bit above the door). The only time all day that she wasn’t there asleep was when she was out on lunch. During lunch hour, the halls were empty and the quad was full while a political meeting of sorts was being held… talk, talk, talk. Makes you sick. And no, this is not an exaggeration – it’s as it happened (I was there).
A similar thing happened at the reservoir in Gonubie. For about 4 weeks the water merrily ran out of the disconnected pipe, in full view of the public, and no-one seemed concerned. This pipe appeared to be fixed about 2 weeks ago, but I still wonder why it took so long.
What happened to a thing called Planned Maintenance? When every part of every sytem was regularly inspected and necessary repairs done / replacements ordered BEFORE there was a problem. Proper PM actually saves money because it prevents many problems occuring, gives good warning of pending problems (so they can be averted / mitigated) and spares all the waste that otherwise occurs. Many more people would have running water, electricty and good roads if PM was a way of life and not a reject of the past.
Planned maintenance? It would appear that the departments in question aren’t even able to plan a p*ss up in a brewery. One sees the same mentality (or rather, lack of), in the shops these days. Only when shelves are empty and customers are complaining about lack of stock, do they order more..Seems to be the new way of life in sunny SA.
Cyclepath. If you do take up Mugabe’s offer of the mayor’s office, I’ll organise the p*ss up for you. Just leave the paintball gun at the door before the alcohol replaces the common sense. Deal?
Awwww, c’mon Dave, the paintball gun is all part of the fun. Just imagine…55 rounds per second being fired. It will be the fastest those pompous members of BCM and their cohorts move in their lifetimes….
It’s ok Dave, I’ll leave the alcohol to the rest of the revellers. The paintball gun is far more fun *mwahaahahaa*
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