RESIDENTS from Gwayi Street in Crossroads, Cape Town have had enough of kak in their street.
They told Daily Sun they’ve lost count of the number of times the municipality resolved the problem, but it returned.
Residents said they were falling sick and couldn’t even let their kids play outside. The sewage is also flowing close to Imbasa Primary School, and residents said this was a health hazard for pupils.
Daily Sun reported on the same problem in April. But residents said the problem started again last month.
“It looks like the sewage is here to stay. We started the year with it and the year is about to end while we’re talking about the same problem,” said resident Melikhaya Quse (34).
Another resident, Babalwa Ngceni (45), said her grandchild developed a rash in April and has the same rash again. “This is always coinciding with sewage flows in the streets,” said Babalwa.
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Residents said Gwayi Street is also riddled with potholes because it’s always wet due to the flowing kak.
Zahid Badroodien, MMC for Water and Sanitation, said they couldn’t fix the problem because of the violence that has been happening in the kasi recently.
“The city’s water and sanitation team could not enter the Nyanga, Gugulethu and Philippi areas, which has caused a backlog of service requests,” he said.
“But a team responded to this service request and discovered that the sewer pipe in Gwayi Street, Philippi was blocked with building rubble.” Badroodien said the issue was attended to on Sunday, 11 September.
“The city continuously repairs damage from vandalism, and clears sewers blocked by inappropriate items that shouldn’t be in the sewer pipeline. Overflows, however, will continue to happen, as long as misuse or vandalism occurs and sewers continue to be blocked by items that should not be in the systems,” he said.
