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File | Sewage spillage.
A five-month water outage has forced residents of Kokosi near Fochville on Gauteng’s West Rand to fetch water from a sewage drain.
Rand Water reduced supply to the Merafong Municipality, saying it owes them over R1 billion and that negotiations to settle the bill fell off.
Community leader Shimani Ramatshosa says residents have fallen ill after using sewage water.
“There are residents who have fallen sick, not only with diarrhea, but we had reports of women who says that part of the water that they collect here they use it for flushing. Now they get infections as a result of this water,” says Ramatshosa.
Ramatshosa slammed the Merafong Municipality for allowing its outstanding account with Rand Water to escalate to more than R1 billion.
“We are saying this is recklessness, dereliction of duty, and also negligence. The reason we are saying that is when we count, we are starting from zero. We now have a debt of about R1.4 billion, this clearly indicates that this is a debt that has accumulated over a period of time,” adds Ramatshosa.
Video | Water crises at Kokosi, near Fochville: Puseletso Mokoena reports
