Residents barricade roads leading to Edendale in protest action after weeks with water and electricity problems. Photo: Nompendulo Ngubane
20 June 2017
On Monday, residents in Pietermaritzburg barricaded roads leading to Edendale in protest action after weeks of water and electricity disruptions. The residents from Slangspruit, Buffer, Denmark and other parts of ward 13, also say that their toilets have not been emptied for a year and they have to relieve themselves in the bush.
Traffic was stopped with broken bottles strewn across the road and barricades of trees and burning tyres.
Some protesters blamed ward councillor Sibongile Mncwango for not communicating with the community. Resident Sihle Nkomo said, “There are 69 homes in Denmark and all those houses have toilets that are full … There has been no water for a week now and we have no electricity. There have been cutoffs … No one told us about the problems.”
Sindiswa Hlophe said, “We are aware that there has or there is water shortage in the Msunduzi area. They must let us know then, [rather] than to have cutoffs without warning. The electricity issue is surprising. We are told that the cause of the cutoff is the suspension of the technicians in the Msunduzi municipality. But why don’t they tell us so that we are aware of what is going on?”
Where roads were closed, police used teargas to disperse the protesters. Police spokesperson Thulani Zwane confirmed that about 500 people took part in the protest.
Ward councillor Mncwango said she was aware of the water and electricity problems in her ward. However, she said, “I have made three attempts to empty the toilets. On two occasions the truck that was hired to do that had problems and the emptying process had to stop.” Mncwango said this was due to residents putting objects in the toilet system that blocked the pipes pumping out the sewage.
“I have now raised the matter with the council,” she said.
Mncwango said, “On Sunday, we had a meeting with the community and we talked about the water, electricity and toilets issue.”
In a media statement, spokesperson for Msunduzi municipality Thobeka Mafumbatha confirmed that there were electricity outages, but said it suspected “sabotage by some small group of elements within our employee workforce. We strongly regret such ill-discipline and anarchy in strongest possible terms.”
The statement says: “It is with great concerns and regret that such disruptions are creating havoc in our communities and have led to power and other service disruptions”, and Mafumbatha again blamed “disgruntlement by our employees”.