From the news desk

Strandfontein residents remain uncertain about quality of tap water

Share this article

Dissatisfied Strandfontein residents are taking up legal action after their tap water was unjustifiably contaminated. Late last week an open meeting was held where the City of Cape Town offered feedback to the community over a confirmed case of cross-contamination. This comes after residents complained about a sewage-like odour when they opened their taps. Following this, the City has since declared the water safe for consumption.

Mayoral Committee Member for Community Services and Health Zahid Badroodien said that there may be discrepancies within the community about whether the water is in fact fit for consumption or not but he can assure residence that it is.

“I understand that there is a level of fear and anxiety by the residence of the area but on Thursday evening myself and a colleague checked the quality of the water by eye and smell and I can assure residence the water was in pristine condition,” said a convinced Badroodien.

Badroodien continued by reassuring residents that there were no traces of E.coli (Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a bacterium commonly found in the gut of warm-blooded organisms) in the water.

“The water had no contact with feces because this obviously what they were worried about,”.

Badroodien said it is unfortunate that there has been a break down of trust between the city and said community.

“We had hoped to achieve a way forward in that community in the sense that a proposal was made to nominate representatives within the community to provide transparent feedback and the community had accepted the request but it seems that has suddenly changed,” said a perplexed Badroodien.

Strandfontein Ratepayers and Residents Association’s Mario Oostendurp is alleged to have said more than 150 people had come forward to say they have fallen ill because of drinking the contaminated water.

However, Badroodien said the Strandfontein public day hospital had only seen a total of 24 patients complaining about abdominal pain with the relation to the consumption of the tap water.

“We have free public facilities in the city and in the area however there is a choice of using private facilities and unfortunately in that case the City will not be able to reimburse them,” explained Badroodien.

Finally, Badroodien added if private doctors were seeing a large volume of patients with the same symptoms they would refer it to the necessary levels.

VOC


Share this article

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

WhatsApp WhatsApp us
Wait a sec, saving restore vars.