Residents of Emfuleni Municipality not only have to use polluted water, some have been experiencing water shortages since 2018.Rand. Water did at one point intervene, however, the municipality owes the water entity R1. 3 billion and was previously placed under administration for mismanagement of funds and lack of service delivery.

A CRY FOR HELP

Residents say they are frustrated and tired of living like they are in the deep rural. Nompumelelo Mzamo, a resident from Evaton, said the situation wasn't getting better although some days are better than others. "This has been ongoing for a while, on a lucky day the water trickles at night and we have buckets on stand by to get the little that we can. Geysers are broken and we are forced to boil water using a kettle which costs more on electricity. It's a lifestyle we find difficult to adjust to," she said. Dikeledi, another resident also from Evaton, said she has to come back from work and wait for the little water they get so she can cook supper. " it's not all the time that we have money to buy water, sometimes the taps just run dry unexpectedly and you find that we do not have any backup water in buckets or containers," she said.

WATER SHORTAGES A TRAGEDY

DA Emfuleni's  Dady Mollo says ongoing water shortages is a violation of human rights and dignity. He added that the decline in basic service delivery across the Emfuleni Local Municipality and the general inability to address these issues quickly are of grave concern and detrimental to the lives of residents. "This type of indignity cannot be accepted, thus we need an urgent and workable plan of action with the necessary timeframe for when residents can expect a solution to this crisis," he said. Mollo explained that these  prolonged water outages put lives and livelihoods at risk as many  residents are forced to rely on water dripping from household pipes at night, while others are forced to use the nearby running sewage from infrastructure leakages to do laundry. He said government urgently needs to provide a  clear plan of action with timeframes to address the water outages in these areas.