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Speaker 1: Seven oh two drive. It's twenty minutes past three. Now.

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Speaker 1: This next thing we're going to talk about very much

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Speaker 1: focuses on the municipality of m Fu Lenni Vole Triangle

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Speaker 1: it used to be called in the past Seboo, King Everton, Boiputong, Bopolong,

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Speaker 1: places that many of you know well, whether you live

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Speaker 1: there or not, but they've certainly featured shopful of course,

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Speaker 1: in many, many conversations in both South Africa's history and

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Speaker 1: in terms of its current difficulties and dilemmas. Our colleague

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Speaker 1: Alpha Ramushwana at Ewn has been down in that part

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Speaker 1: of Kuteng, spending some time in communities, taking a look

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Speaker 1: at what's been going on there, and he joins us now, Alpha,

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Speaker 1: a very good afternoon too. Some of this prompted, i believe,

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Speaker 1: by an question asked in the Kuting legislature. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure what prompted the asking of the question that was

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Speaker 1: submitted by the Democratic Alliance. Almost seven hundred million rand

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Speaker 1: spent on overtime pay for cleaning an environmental units down

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Speaker 1: in the mful Any municipality. You'd expect the place to

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Speaker 1: look pretty spick and span. Does it well? Of course?

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Speaker 2: And that is why we went to mful need to

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Speaker 2: see if the seven hundred million rands to visible change

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Speaker 2: on the ground, and according to the residents, there is

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Speaker 2: little to no change on the ground in mful An.

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Speaker 2: I mean, just as you drive into some of the neighborhoods,

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Speaker 2: the Debonet Park community, the Tepong township, the first thing

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Speaker 2: that slaps your face is a strong stench of sewage. Yes,

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Speaker 2: and you drive just on top of that sewage in

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Speaker 2: some of the roads because they are not fixing and

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Speaker 2: replacing municipal infrastructure, and so these sewage pipes have caused

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Speaker 2: you know, sewage to float down the street. In some cases,

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Speaker 2: homes are flooded. I went to a crash that has

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Speaker 2: been closed down because of the issue. You can imagine

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Speaker 2: taking your child to a daycare center and the sewage,

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Speaker 2: the smell is all over the place. Homes are blocked,

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Speaker 2: gates can't be accessed anymore because sewage is all over

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Speaker 2: the place. So there's a very serious sewage crisis in

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Speaker 2: the ufil Any local municipality. According to the residents, it's

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Speaker 2: been almost ten years that this has been happening. Contractors

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Speaker 2: have been appointed to deal with the issue, yet little

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Speaker 2: to no change has been seen, so really, according to

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Speaker 2: the residents, and that they joint, there's little to no

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Speaker 2: change on the ground.

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Speaker 1: The municipality might try and defend themselves by saying, well,

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Speaker 1: the overtime wasn't spent on dealing with sewage. That's a

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Speaker 1: different department. National government was getting involved Apartment of Water.

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Speaker 1: As you rightly point out, conveying the sentiment of the

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Speaker 1: residents alpha that this has been going on for a

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Speaker 1: decade and possibly longer. They would say, well, these people

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Speaker 1: do other things, they collect rubbish and so on. I mean,

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Speaker 1: what are we seeing in that regard.

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Speaker 2: Well, I did have an interview with the municipality trying

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Speaker 2: to establish why exactly the sewage issue isn't getting fixed

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Speaker 2: and many other service delivery challenges that I came across,

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Speaker 2: and the response that I got from the spokesperson, Makosonkee

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Speaker 2: Somewayni was that they simply don't have the financial muscle

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Speaker 2: to fix all of the issues. They have residents, according

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Speaker 2: to the municipality, who are not paying for services and

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Speaker 2: so the revenue collection is horrible and they are nable

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Speaker 2: to pay for maintaining and fixing their infrastructure. So on.

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Speaker 2: The other hand, they don't have the money to do so.

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Speaker 2: On the other hand, they're also saying that they're simply

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Speaker 2: not getting the money from the residents and so they

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Speaker 2: have to pick and choose what to prioritize. And this

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Speaker 2: time around, it seems like the sewage issue hasn't necessarily

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Speaker 2: been a priority over the past few years in the

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Speaker 2: Mfulini Local municipality. John I went to mful any I

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Speaker 2: compiled a special report. Let's take a listen to some

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Speaker 2: of the encounters of the residents. Six hundred and ninety

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Speaker 2: four million Rand. That's exactly how much the embattled mfull

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Speaker 2: any Local Municipality has spent on overtime pay. From sewage

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Speaker 2: flooding into homes to roads that are barely usable. Residents

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Speaker 2: have been left stunned by the money being spent given

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Speaker 2: the poor services they've grown tired of complaining about. But

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Speaker 2: the true impact of enfulades service delivery failures is best

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Speaker 2: reflected in the lived reality of one family whose home

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Speaker 2: is engulfed by the pungent smell of running sewage. What

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Speaker 2: was once again welcoming visitors and vehicles into the yard

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Speaker 2: now stands in disrepair, blocked by thick and foul smelling

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Speaker 2: waste water. For the past ten years. This has been

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Speaker 2: a painful reality of seventy seven year old Mabel Chortes.

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Speaker 3: I've lost all hope in the sewage issue. Evercates in figs.

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Speaker 3: Only God knows what the future holds. The anc governments

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Speaker 3: in Infullinis simply doesn't care about me. I bought this

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Speaker 3: house because I love the area.

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Speaker 2: But look now, and just outside her home home is

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Speaker 2: the Busy Rolls Road, which separates the Mphulany and Midfold

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Speaker 2: local municipalities. Much like Choki's property, the road has also

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Speaker 2: been affected by years of neglect, with broken sewage pipes

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Speaker 2: that have not been maintained in over a decade. Motorists

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Speaker 2: Tabo Mohale since calling the holes in the road potholes

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Speaker 2: would be an understatement. This has affected us very very bad, terribly.

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Speaker 1: So as you see me right now, I'm going in

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Speaker 1: and out of the doctors because of diarrhea, because of

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Speaker 1: sicknesses that are aligned with the sea. We're exposed to.

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Speaker 2: This sea that you see a deeper into. Mfulni is

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Speaker 2: another community battling a severe sewage infestation. In Tapong, an

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Speaker 2: elderly woman was forced to shut down her daycare center

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Speaker 2: after kneehigh sewage entered her home. The Belheli Daycare Center,

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Speaker 2: which was once filled with a joyful sound of children playing,

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Speaker 2: now stands empty and.

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Speaker 1: Stripped of color.

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Speaker 2: The bright paint on the swings is beginning to peel away,

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Speaker 2: with patches of rust now impossible to miss.

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Speaker 3: Because how could we have continued to operate in the

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Speaker 3: daycare for sewerage all over the place?

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Speaker 2: It was some risk. All these affected residents have questioned

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Speaker 2: why the seven hundred million rants spent on over time

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Speaker 2: has not been translated into visible change on the ground. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 2: the municipality says it simply does not have the resources

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Speaker 2: to address the switch crisis as quickly as it would like.

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Speaker 2: Ah Far raman I Witness News.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that really is a summary, in stark detail of

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Speaker 1: what the residents of Mfuleni are currently going through. If

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Speaker 1: you live in that part of how Teng by the way,

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Speaker 1: please to give us a call and just tell us

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Speaker 1: what you make of the services you receive from a

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Speaker 1: municipality that has recently spent nearly seven hundred million round

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Speaker 1: on overtime pay for its workers dealing with environmental and

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Speaker 1: community issues. Give US a call on that. That report

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Speaker 1: compiled by EWN colleague Alfa ra Muschwina, it's twenty eight

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Speaker 1: minutes past three