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Frustrated villagers have accused Buffalo City Metro workers of sabotaging their water supply to favour water tanker tenders, with the year-long water outage and prolonged suffering boiling over into a desperate protest on the R72 near East London on Wednesday.
Villages 2, 3 and 4 in Ncera have been left high and dry without clean drinking water after several attempts to have the matter resolved failed to yield the desired results.
According to villagers, BCM passed the buck to the Amatola Water Board, which in turn refused to take responsibility, insisting the metro should deal with it.
Speaking on behalf of the residents, Noxolo Ndzimela said the outage posed a health hazard.
“We rely on water tankers that supply dirty water, causing skin problems,” she said.
“Elderly people who live alone struggle to fetch water from the tankers; it’s heartbreaking to see them fending for themselves.
“Strangely enough, neighbouring areas are not affected.”
Though authorities reportedly promised the protesting villagers on Wednesday that the problem would be resolved by November, residents demanded a solution within seven days.
Ndzimela warned that if their demands were not met, they would resume protest action and block the road again.
“It’s clear they don’t want the issue resolved to ensure service providers get tenders,” she said.
The villagers, including children, claimed they were forced to drink dirty water from the tankers, while others have resorted to boiling it as a safety measure.
“Some people use water to take pills for health reasons and sometimes don’t have time to boil water, so they use the dirty water instead,” Ndzimela said.
“We tried to engage Amatola on Wednesday, but officials referred us to Buffalo City Metro, telling us that the municipality is responsible for water supply.”
Metro spokesperson Bongani Fuzile had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Amatola Water Board stakeholder relations and communications manager Nolitha Mbangcolo confirmed a “productive” meeting with Ncera community representatives and BCM to address water supply challenges.
“It is essential to clarify that Amatola Water’s primary responsibility is to provide bulk water,” Mbangcolo said.
She highlighted the utility’s role in supplying treated bulk water to municipalities, which distribute it to households and businesses.
The meeting identified key challenges: increased demand, illegal connections and infrastructure strain.
“The current water infrastructure is under pressure from these combined factors, which affects the overall capacity for bulk water provision,” Mbangcolo said.
Amatola Water and BCM agreed to explore interim solutions.
“This may include the installation of valves to redirect water flow for the ratio system among the affected communities until the construction of the water pipeline project from Mount Coke, currently under way, is completed by December 2025,” Mbangcolo said.
In May, mayor Princess Faku said a suspected organised crime syndicate operating within the metro was believed to be illegally siphoning water from municipal sources and reselling it to the metro at inflated prices.
The same group was also suspected of sabotaging water infrastructure to sustain their illicit operations.
Amid growing concerns over mysterious outages, including a pipe burst in Mzonyana on May 17, there were fears that the disruptions were being orchestrated to undermine BCM management.
In response, Faku had announced that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) would probe the outages, which had affected townships across the metro at time.
Daily Dispatch
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