Residents of Embhovane in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth, have complained to the municipality that raw sewage flows into their yards. Photo: Joseph Chirume
10 October 2017
Residents of a housing project in Port Elizabeth have been living with raw sewage flowing into their yards for more than two weeks.
Resident Nolukholo Nogodama of Embhovane, Motherwell, said, “I can’t let my kid go outside because the whole yard is filled with human sludge. The water is black and smells.” She worried about the health hazard it posed.
Nogodama said though the problem had been reported several times to the municipality, it had not been fixed.
Madoda Pule said, “I have three children who are all below the age of ten … There are worms and big flies all over the place.”
Pule said residents would stage protests if the municipality continued to ignore their pleas. “We cannot continue to live with dams of human faeces around our houses,” he said.
Spokesperson for the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Mthubanzi Mniki said, “The municipality is experiencing challenges with sewage infrastructure where foreign objects like tyres, plastic bottles and construction rubble are thrown inside manholes, leading to blockages and bursts.”
Mniki said a team would be sent to resolve the problem and urged residents not to dispose of “foreign objects” in the drains.