The Buffalo City Metro welcomes the study which reveals that there has been improvement in the access to water, sanitation and PPE’s in its informal settlements during the Covid 19 lockdown period.

A study conducted by NGO Afesis-corplan (http://afesis.org.za) has shone the spotlight on the daunting state of access to water and sanitation in informal settlements across the country, finding that one out of every five informal settlement residents does not have consistent access to water.

More than 400 households in 153 informal settlements answered four questions regarding their access to water and sanitation every week in the study called called #Asivikelane, a basic service delivery monitoring tool.

These questions were posed to settlements in certain metros across the country and centred around access to clean water, clean toilets, waste collection as well as whether the government had provided soap and hand sanitiser to the area in the last seven days.

The Municipality welcomes the study revelations that in Buffalo City, new toilets and taps were installed while broken ones were repaired in some areas. We also welcome the findings that some of our informal settlements had received masks, gloves and soap.

The City’s Command Council, chaired by Executive Mayor Councillor Xola Pakati meets weekly to ensure that communities in the City receive services including those that are previously disadvantaged. Work streams comprising of all government departments operating in the City report on areas of health, public safety, economic development, community services, human settlements, infrastructure and legal compliance.

The study also looks into areas of refuse removal and waste collection.

Access to water:

The study revealed it was of concern that one out of every five residents did not have consistent access to water, with residents in Johannesburg, Cape Town and eThekwini also reporting water pressure problems, a lack of taps and poor maintenance of infrastructure.

As a City, we pride ourselves with the fact that 98 percent of households are getting water and those that not in our bulk system are having the water delivered.

Buffalo City has delivered a total of 72 water tanks to all its communities in an attempt to ensure that people have access to water. Of the 72 water tanks 40 have been installed and the rest is still on the way. This total is additional to the 294 tanks that BCMM had provided to various areas prior to the COVID 19 period. 

Buffalo City has a total of 19 water tankers that are delivering services in the affected areas.  Water quality monitoring on the water tankers is done on a weekly basis, in addition to daily sampling and testing of the reticulated portable water.

All trucks and fill-up points sampled and te

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Date Posted: 2020-06-01