Sue Maclennan @SusanMaclennan2
Four neighbours in Kota Street, Extension 9, spent the long weekend enduring the effects of a sewage spill.
A large section of cultural activist Vuyo Booi’s Kota Street floor was flooded with sewage. When Grocott’s Mail visited the site last Friday, he said his neighbours had all had the same problem.
Grocott’s Mail chatted to Vuyo’s back-fence neighbour Amelia Nikelo. Her toilet, which is an outside flush toilet, had spewed sewage, which was still all around the toilet and on the grass outside it.
Grocott’s Mail also spoke to Vuyo’s next-door neighbour Mercy Bavuma. Like Vuyo she has an inside toilet, This was not flooded, however. Instead, her problem was that overflowing sewage from her back-fence neighbour came into her yard.
Nikelo had gone to the municipal offices in Extension 6 to report the problem on Wednesday. On Thursday a standby plumber and his crew came and opened the inspection cover in the road and unblocked the drain.
While the sewage had stopped overflowing, the four households were left with different problems.
Amelia (whom she said the ward councillor for the area, Luyanda Nase, did in fact visit on Thursday), still had the sewage from Wednesday’s overflow around her toilet. She was waiting for the municipality to bring a substance to cover the spilt sewage.
Bavuma had cut channels in her back yard so the pools of liquid ran away from her house and instead pooled in the street.
The fourth person wasn’t at home, but seemed to have the same problem as Nikelo with their outside toilet.
There was liquid oozing from the toilet outlet outside Booi’s house. Inside, his toilet was blocked.
Grocott’s Mail asked Makana Municipality questions which had not yet been answered by the time of going to press. They included whether there was a general problem with the sewerage infrastructure in that area, and what a resident should do if they have a blocked sewer. We hope to share more information in next week’s edition.
