The water and environmental affairs department will help supply water to Carolina, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa said .
|||Pretoria - The water and environmental affairs department will help supply water to Carolina, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa said on Tuesday.
This would happen even though a judgment on the matter by the High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday was actually directed at Mpumalanga municipal authorities.
“Even though there is no order against us as the department of water affairs, we will ensure that the judgment against the municipality is addressed,” she told reporters in Pretoria.
On Tuesday morning, the court ordered the Gert Sibanda district municipality to provide Carolina residents with drinkable water within 72 hours. The municipality had to provide a minimum of 25 litres of drinkable water per person per day.
The municipality's mayor and manager were also ordered to talk to the Federation for a Sustainable Environment and Sibolela Concerned Community, which brought the court application, about restoring the town's water supply.
A plan needed to be devised about where, when and what volume of water would be provided in the interim.
The court ordered the municipality to give it a progress report within a month.
Federation for Sustainable Environment director Koos Pretorius said in a statement: “We are very satisfied we got what we asked for and they (the municipality) must now consult with us and draw up a plan which will become a court order... (to) find a solution in the long term,”
Legal Resources Centre attorney Naseema Fakir said there had been insufficient communication with the residents of Carolina, Caropark and Silobela, who had not been included in talks on solving the water situation in the area.
“To date, they have also not been kept abreast with the temporary water supply either, this is why we had to ask the court to intervene,” Fakir said.
“The municipality further failed to fulfil their own commitments about the delivery of water. If they had done so, this matter would never have come to court.”
Molewa said the Water Services Act stated that: “Every water authority has a duty to all consumers or potential consumers in its area of jurisdiction to progressively ensure sufficient, affordable, economical and sustainable access to water services.”
She said water samples received on Tuesday morning confirmed that the water in Carolina was now compliant with South African standards.
“Based on these results, I would like to pronounce that the drinking water of Carolina be declared safe for human consumption by my responsible technical unit.”
Molewa said tests by three laboratories had proved that the pH levels, and levels of aluminium, iron, manganese, and sulphates in the Carolina water were within the set health limits.
In delivering judgment, Judge Moses Mavundla said the case related to residents' basic right of access to water.
“I am of the view that, when fundamentally entrenched rights are violated or compromised... the matter intrinsically becomes urgent.”
Mavundla said it was not disputed that the water in the area was polluted, and the municipality's assurance that the water would be declared safe by June was in fact not the case.
Residents had been supplied with polluted water since January. They had been told not to drink it.
Coal mines in the had area apparently caused the pollution. - Sapa