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Angry Kariega residents marched on the Gqeberha city hall on Wednesday, demanding answers from mayor Babalwa Lobishe over crippling water and electricity outages that have pushed some communities to breaking point.
About 250 residents from wards 47 to 51 protested in front of City Hall.
They handed over petitions to the mayor’s office, accusing the municipality of failing to address persistent service delivery breakdowns.
This included prolonged water outages, electricity problems, poor infrastructure maintenance and a lack of communication from officials.
They shouted out their concerns and insulted security guards while holding up placards.
In the petitions, circulated among the crowd for signatures, the residents expressed dissatisfaction with the state of service delivery, particularly water and sanitation, health care, electricity supply, infrastructure maintenance and human settlements.
They complained about frequent delays, poor communication, unresponsive municipal staff and unresolved service delivery complaints, saying inadequate maintenance was negatively affecting daily life in their communities.
They called for urgent intervention and demanded that the municipality provide a clear action plan with timelines for improvements, along with regular progress updates.
DA MPL Retief Odendaal joined the protest.
Tiryville resident Maggie Jacobs said her taps had been dry for five months, and that she had not had power for four months.
“I must fight in the night with the electricity department to go and see that there is electricity in the ward.
“So many houses haven’t had electricity for two or three years. Enough is enough. That is why I have come here. To ask the mayor what is happening in Tiryville.
“I told the community I must take a bus and I must come here to ask the mayor what is going on. I am sick and tired of our people suffering like this.”
Resident Marius Roach said Lobishe and her team were failing Kariega residents. “We do not get answers, we do not get feedback from officials, and even the mayor refuses to come out and speak to the residents.
“We hope that the ANC can wake up and remove the mayor because she is failing the people. It is just a dream that we will get some action because we know we will not get it.”
Municipal spokesperson Sithembile Soyaya said the city’s water services sub-directorate had implemented a three-pronged intervention to restore water distribution before the end of this week in Tiryville and surrounding areas.
“The municipality is increasing water supply from the Nooitgedacht Water Scheme while simultaneously operating the Kabah Water Treatment Plant at maximum capacity to augment water availability in the affected areas.”
He said the restoration of water supply in several affected areas had significantly reduced pressure on emergency relief measures.
“As a result, the municipality is now able to deploy additional water tankers to Tiryville and surrounding communities to mitigate the impact of the outages while the system continues to recover.”
Lobishe said she understood the residents’ plight. “Although the system has recovered to above 80%, we still have a few areas like Tiryville and a few high-lying areas in Kariega that are still affected.
“We are taking advantage of our integrated system and pushing the capacity of our plants to recover our reservoirs quicker,” she said. “With everything going according to the plan, we hope to have running water at Tiryville and the surrounding areas by this weekend.”
Odendaal has since written to the SA Human Rights Commission.
At the city hall, he said residents were fed up. “There are hundreds of isolated electricity outages and an intermittent water supply. Certain parts of the community have not had water for five months. It is totally unacceptable.
“I have now, this morning, laid a formal charge at the commission to say that this administration under the leadership of Lobishe does not care about the people of Kariega, and therefore they have to step in and formally investigate what is happening here.”
Odendaal asked the commission to investigate the scale of Kariega’s water and electricity crises, the causes behind recurring outages and infrastructure failures, and whether the municipality’s governance, planning and budgeting systems were contributing to the problems.
He also called for scrutiny of emergency response measures, co-ordination between different spheres of government, the impact on affected communities, and the effectiveness of the municipality and other state entities in dealing with the crisis.
Ward 51 councillor Roelf Basson said that at one stage, more than 72 streets in Kariega had no power.
“The guys are working long hours because there are not sufficient artisans and there is no efficient equipment. I worked in this municipality for 42 years, and I found it very strange that municipal workers are working until after 12 at night.
“We are fighting with our backs against the wall. This is not business as usual,” he said.
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