In Njela village, near Port St. Johns, an elderly woman kneels at the edge of a murky dam, cupping water into a plastic container. She has no choice. This is her only drinking water, shared with cattle. Thirty-one years after democracy, this is the daily reality for rural villagers abandoned by the OR Tambo District Municipality.
The Eastern Cape’s water crisis is worsening, with district municipalities repeatedly failing in their most basic duty – providing clean water. Last week, the Democratic Alliance (DA) visited four villages in OR Tambo District to witness firsthand how thousands of people survive without a municipal water supply.
In Mawusheni, residents rise before dawn to walk kilometres to a small spring, the only water source available after years of dry municipal pipes. In Mawotsheni and Matokozini, near Coffee Bay, residents endure regular and prolonged outages while nearby towns receive uninterrupted supply. Community leaders in Mawotsheni have expressed frustration, questioning why Coffee Bay consistently has water while their villages remain dry. These leaders warned that past cholera outbreaks had already claimed lives in the region and fear that, if nothing changes, history could repeat itself.
For years, the OR Tambo District Municipality has failed to fulfil its obligations as a Water Services Authority, leaving residents without access to safe, clean drinking water.
The DA is taking immediate action by lodging a formal complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) against OR Tambo District Municipality for its repeated failure to ensure water access. The SAHRC recently confirmed that water access is the number one human rights complaint in the Eastern Cape and that OR Tambo is among the top five worst municipalities in the province regarding alleged rights violations.
We have also formally called on the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) MEC, Zolile Williams, to intervene immediately and deploy emergency water relief to the affected villages.
This is no longer just a service delivery failure. It is a human rights crisis.
The DA is demanding an urgent investigation into OR Tambo District Municipality’s failure to provide water and intervention from the national government to prevent further suffering.
We will not stand by while lives are put at risk, and we will continue to fight until every household in the Eastern Cape has access to clean, safe drinking water.