Angry KwaMakhutha residents block roads with burning tyres over water outages
|Published
Residents of Embokodweni area in KwaMakhutha, south of Durban, say they have not had water for more than a month.
The residents took to the streets on Monday, blocking roads with broken glass, rocks and burning tyres.
A resident, who asked not be named, said they were not able to do their daily chores, and schoolchildren did not attend school because there was no water.
“We are suffering here, we cannot clean our houses, we cannot wash our clothes and the councillor has not come to fix the water issue, so that is why we are so angry as the community because we need water,” said the resident.
The residents had blocked off the road from 5am and they said they were not leaving until the councillor comes to address them.
“We are not going to leave here until we see water coming out of our taps and they must make sure that they do not give us water for one day only,” shouted a resident in the crowd.
A man leading the protest, who asked not to be identified, said there had been a meeting before where the councillor of the area addressed the issue of water.
“I believe that even though there was a meeting regarding the water issue, residents were not aware because the information of what was discussed did not reach a lot of people,” he said.
Speaking to “The Mercury” he said: “The issue here is that the residents no longer want to fetch water from the water trucks, they want water to come from the taps at their homes.”
In response to questions, the eThekwini Municipality communication unit said it has a standard 24-hour response turnaround time frame from the time the query was received depending on the availability of the information requested.
The Mercury