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Makhanda residents collect water from a Gift of the Givers water tanker in March last year.
File Photo: Lucas Nowicki / GroundUp
- The areas in Makhanda have been without water due to a failure in a dam that supplies the reservoir.
- The Gift of the Givers charity has been summoned to help the community.
- The municipality says there are now five trucks bringing water to the area.
The Gift of the Givers charity has joined in to help the community of Makhanda, in the Eastern Cape, gain access to water.
A failure in one of the dams left parts of the area without water for four days.
Makana Township Councilor Ramie Xonxa told News24 on Sunday that certain areas in Makhanda had been without water for a few days after the dam failure.
“I don’t want to say without water, but there are areas where we couldn’t bring water to them, due to a failure in one of the dams. We couldn’t pump water into the reservoir that will supply water,” he said. explained.
Xonxa, who is part of the engineering and infrastructure services portfolio committee, added that the engine died on Thursday and, as a result, the municipality organized trucks to deliver water to the community while the engine is serviced.
As a result, the municipality says it currently has six Jojo tanks, each with a capacity of 5,000 liters.
Additionally, the municipality had five trucks delivering water today: two from Makana municipality, one hired truck, and two from Gift of the Givers.
A full statement from the municipality is expected soon. It will be added, once received.
In a statement on Sunday, the nonprofit Gift of Givers said the calls were coming in after the water was 100% shut off in Makhanda.
“This is Deja Vu … Gift of the Givers faced the same barrage of calls on Friday, February 8, 2019, the same situation and the same requests, which precipitated our intervention in Makhanda on February 12, 2019,” he said. its founder Imtiaz. Sooliman said.
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He said the organization had arranged for its tanker trucks to distribute water in various parts of Makhanda since 2020 from its “super” well at the Ntsika school.
“Today in terms of emergency response, a Gift of the Givers water tanker from Adelaide will arrive to assist our existing water tanker in Makhanda.
“Five JoJo tanks will accompany the water tanker and become functional immediately. The Gift of the Givers drilling crews will investigate the pump failure in Wyenek and seek to make the seven wells drilled by us functional,” Sooliman said.
The organization also said that the municipality’s water tanker truck, and another sent by the Amathole district municipality, will work in unison with the Gift of the Givers tanker trucks, all drawing water from the Ntsika well.
“We will work together with the municipality to investigate a sustainable permanent solution, all depending on the cost and availability of financing,” concluded Sooliman.
READ | Makhanda Water Crisis: A New Hope When Gift of the Givers Hit the Water
In February 2019, the municipality had approached the charity for help.
At the time, Sooliman said Gift of the Givers helped by doing consulting work and writing plans.
He said they drew up a rescue plan and began the process of “saving the city” immediately.
The charity group also brought in a specialist hydrologist, Dr. Gideon Groenewald, to locate and drill wells in the area, “where the geology is very difficult and finding water is a great challenge.”
Then they drilled 15 wells, analyzed the water, brought in a special filtration system, delivered bottled water, water by truck, and “did everything possible to help the community, since that was the priority.”
Sooliman said that, during that process, the organization “had not received a penny from any government institution.”
“[The organisation] they drilled wells, assisted with the transportation of water, and supplied large quantities of bottled water. The support provided during a difficult period was, and continues to be, greatly appreciated by the council. “
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