Murder by Municipal Neglect
Media reports this week that up to 80 babies have died in the Eastern Cape from diarrhoea and complications arising from what would appear to be the contamination of drinking water have led to rearguard caution from the Department of Water Affairs and the affected municipality. They are hesitating to attribute the deaths to the quality of drinking water in the Ukhahlamba municipality. Yet, an official health report submitted to the municipality last week confirmed that water purification works had broken down in October last year.
The Coalition Against Water Privatisation is calling on the municipality to declare the situation an emergency and take immediate action to solve the problem. The provision of bleach, the boiling of all drinking water and the hygiene awareness initiatives are all attributable to the same source – the quality of the water. It is an admission that water quality in Ukhahlamba does not meet the necessary hygiene standards and it is very worrying that the municipality was only moved to action after the deaths of 15 babies was reported to them by the Cloete Joubert Hospital in Barkly East. We cannot allow a situation where our people are forced to drink unsafe water. The municipality must issue a public warning about the danger now before they become responsible for more deaths.
When the Coalition Against Water Privatisation visited the community of Elinge in the Eastern Cape in the same October (2007), the community's drinking water had mixed with sewerage due to a burst pipe and the water was brown. Five community members had by then already died because of the water quality. Fifteen deaths and counting to 80 deaths resulting from diarrhoea and other related complications and the municipality will only now 'start warning the public'. The Coalition supports the call by the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Water Affairs for the Human Rights Commission to investigate the situation in Ukhamhlamba District Municipality. The evidence all points to murder by municipal neglect.
Different community-based organizations under the banner of CAWP in the Eastern Cape are organizing for mass action next month, to address this unacceptable situation and to force the municipality other levels of government (both provincial and national) to ensure that all citizens have clean, accessible water.
By Coalition Against Water Privatisation
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=8752
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