PORT ELIZABETH - EASTER WEEKEND SEES NORTHERN AREAS WITHOUT WATER

Several areas in Port Elizabeth's Northern Areas have been without water since before the start of the Easter Weekend.

Algoa FM News has been inundated with queries and complaints from desperate residents from areas such as Palmridge, Bethelsdorp and Bloemendal who have been without water for four days.

According to a post on Facebook, three water tankers were placed in three different locations with the promise that it will rotate to different areas once it is refilled.

On Sunday morning, Executive Mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay Mongameli Bobani took to Twitter to acknowledge and apologise for the water outage.

He said although water tankers have been placed in different areas to provide water, it was not an ideal situation.

Bobani added that technicians were working around the clock to normalise the situation.

The Mayor promised to visit the Helenvale Multipurpose centre on Monday to check on the affected areas.

According to Bobani, ward councilors from the affected areas have been given updated information regarding repairs.

A reason for the water outage was not supplied to the media, however, they were invited to join Bobani on his visit to Helenvale on Monday.

The DA had this to say regarding the matter:

The inability of the failing ANC/EFF/UDM coalition of corruption government in Nelson Mandela Bay to deal with a crisis, is why taps in the Northern Areas have been dry for days.

The people of the Northern Areas have been without water for the past four days and this has had a disastrous effect on their Easter celebrations.

It is inexcusable that the Metro has been unable to detect what the root cause of the water disruption is.

Nelson Mandela Bay’s water infrastructure has in the past been disrupted due to sabotage. The DA sincerely hopes the water crisis is not due to sabotage, but the fact that Metro officials have struggled for four days to find a solution to the problem, raises a red flag

Executive Mayor Mongameli Bobani’s hollow apology to residents on Easter Sunday, four days into the crisis, highlights the lack of political leadership and administrative capacity of the governing ANC-led coalition of corruption

Residents have been going without water as the Municipality is finding it impossible to put all its water tankers on the road.

The DA Caucus in NMB has reached out to the DA-led Kouga Local Municipality, who has agreed to supply additional tankers to assist the people of the Northern Areas.

I will demand Council order an investigation into this debacle and that a full report is tabled as to hold those responsible to account.

Water is a basic human and if the coalition of corruption fail to take action, we will take this up with the South African Human Rights Commission.

It is clear that the ANC/EFF/UDM coalition of corruption cares nothing for the people of the Northern Areas.

Recently this coalition of corruption removed R100 million from ward budgets for the Northern Areas and now the residents have been left high and dry over this very significant long weekend.

Only a DA government can build One South Africa for All by fighting corruption and speeding up the delivery of basic services

via - ALGOAFM / DA