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Concerns Escalate in Ndlambe Water Crisis

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Dear MyPE

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will request the national and provincial government to urgently intervene to address the water crisis in the Ndlambe Local Municipality – as the municipal administration is clearly incapable and unwilling to save residents from taps running dry.

On Tuesday, 6 October 2020, DA Shadow Minister of Water and Sanitation, Leon Basson, MP, and DA Eastern Cape Shadow MEC for Rural Development and Agrarian Reform, Retief Odendaal, MPL, joined local councillors and key stakeholders in Port Alfred to discuss the Municipality’s water crisis.

The delegation was also informed about the latest developments regarding a High Court judgement against the Ndlambe Municipality. This judgement found that a tender for the construction of a reverse osmosis (RO) plant in Port Alfred was unlawful and was set aside.

Council’s decision to fire Amatola Water as a service provider, and the state of Port Alfred’s various sources of water supply – the Sarel Hayward dam, dune extraction and the central belt boreholes – were discussed. Options for conserving and managing water and the need for better communication with residents were also agreed upon.

An oversight inspection was also conducted at the proposed site for the RO plant.

Mr Basson will now write to the Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, Lindiwe Sisulu, to request greater government involvement in die RO plant project in Ndlambe.

The DA will also take the issue forward on a provincial level, and Mr Odendaal will write to the EC Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) requesting it to speed up the process of declaring Ndlambe a disaster area.

The continued mismanagement of Ndlambe’s scarce water resources cannot be allowed to go ahead unchecked, and the DA will use every measure available to ensure that the residents of Ndlambe are supplied with clean and potable water.

Regards

Cllr Ray Schenk
DA Ndlambe Caucus Leader

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Port Elizabethan

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