When he is in the mood, there is water in the village.
When he isn’t, there’s none.
This is the cruel quality of life in many Eastern Cape villages, where being denied water is a fact of life for hundreds of thousands of people.
But this particular employee, says Mlindeli Lonzi, headman of a village in Dikeni, will leave hundreds of villagers without water simply because he does not feel like doing his job, which is to pump water when the levels drop.
Thanks to this truant individual, Lonzi and villagers said, sometimes the water will only flow for an hour and then it’s gone for the day.
“We are sabotaged by one person,” Lonzi said.
They said their pleas to the employee’s bosses, Amathole district municipality have echoed his behaviour — the official pipeline for action has also seemingly run dry.
There is nothing wrong with the water supply system.
Lonzi said: “We don’t have a problem with the source, we have a lot of water. “The dam that is supplying with water is always full,” he said.
He was adamant that their water supply was entirely dependent on the employee’s mood.
When the Dispatch team arrived at the village, we found local clinic and the local primary school and preschool had been without water for days.
Lonzi said: “Pupils are asked to bring water every day.”
Lonzi said there were four villages affected and their community centres. “We have raised this with the municipality leaders because it is frustrating for us. “We do not have water for days because the person responsible for pumping the water doesn’t do their job.”
“When this happens, schools are affected. “The clinics and a creche also gets affected. “We go days and even weeks without water. How long must this go on for?”
Lonzi raised the ever-present spectre of extortion, saying: “When people need water they end up hiring vehicles to fetch water, or just buy the water.
“If the person is pumping in the morning, by 9am he stops and starts again in the afternoon which is costing us a lot. “Because of the terrain of our area the water goes to the lower areas and by the time it gets to the upper areas the water quickly runs out. “Yet] the dam is full of water.”
DispatchLIVE
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