Businessman Nick Mlumbi, tired of Amathole District Municipality’s delay in fixing broken sewage pipelines near his house, threw three 25-litre containers of raw sewage inside the municipal offices in Fort Beaufort on Tuesday.
He said the staff, who had previously given him “attitude” when he pleaded for repair work, fled from the waste.
A council employee who cannot be named as he is not allowed to speak to the media said he witnessed Mlumbi throwing the waste inside municipal offices.
Mlumbi, a resident of Fort Beaufort for 20 years, said he had enough of what he said ADM officials were doing to him and his family.
He said: “I took the decision to dump this waste water in their offices so that they can feel what I am feeling here for the past years. I just cannot deal with this problem and each time I visit them they tell me that they will fix it later, and they will never come back,” he said.
The Dispatch team visited his Fort Beaufort townhouse and saw puddles of waste water inside his yard.
The swimming pool at the back of the house had a dark layer of sludge on the bottom and it stank.
“You can see the swimming pool has this water. Each time we have to get down to the pool to clean it otherwise it always leaves a stench.”
His son Asthandile Mlumbi said: “We can’t even open windows here in this house. We really can’t live like this. This is a health hazard. It is affecting us badly.
“The attitude ADM staff give us when we visit them is just not on. We constantly report this to them but they don’t respond.”
Dispatch tried to call the municipality but was referred to the spokesperson, Nonceba-Madikizela Vuso.
She didn’t respond at the time of going to print.
Mlumbi, who also runs a small butchery, said: “I could not handle this anymore. I wanted these people to feel the same way I am feeling. Me and my neighbours have been complaining about this.”
The Daily Dispatch’s investigation, Stinking Truth last month revealed that the sewage treatment plants at a number of municipalities lacked maintenance and weren’t working.
The Kei, Great Fish, Kowie, and Nahoon rivers have become sewers, either because the treatment plants do not work and the sewage flows straight into the river, or pipes break, with the same result.
The ADM, at the time, said it had set aside money to fix the problems but its main focus would be on rural sanitation projects.
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