Note to Editors: Please attached a soundbite by Cllr Sue Bentley
An official response to questions in the Eastern Cape Legislature has exposed the full extent of Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality’s failure to address the persistent sewage crisis in Pefferville.
In response to the parliamentary question from DA BCM Constituency Leader, Leander Kruger MPL, COGTA MEC Zolile Williams revealed that during the current council term, BCM has received 11 Notices of Intention to Issue a Directive for non-compliance with the National Water Act, as well as one formal directive.
The directive, issued on 9 October 2024, specifically addressed the continuous overflow of raw sewage from manholes in Pefferville and the resulting pollution of a tributary of the Buffalo River.
BCM was instructed to stop the overflows, prevent further spillages, clean and rehabilitate the affected areas, test the polluted water resource, and submit a detailed corrective action plan. It was also required to appoint a suitably registered professional to prepare a costed rehabilitation plan.
Download response here
Nearly two years later, the provincial government has confirmed that the directive has still not been fully addressed.
Sewage spillages remain persistent, and a municipal maintenance team reportedly attends to blockages in Pefferville daily.
Dispatching teams to unblock an overwhelmed system after every failure is reactive crisis management, not a permanent solution.
The Metro attributes the continuing spillages to increased population density, poorly constructed sewer connections, vandalised manholes, and illegal dumping.
These are real challenges, but they cannot become excuses for leaving residents surrounded by raw sewage.
Population growth did not happen overnight. A capable municipality plans for growth, protects its infrastructure, enforces its by-laws, and expands services before systems collapse.
BCM’s admission that it cannot isolate how much it has spent responding to the directive, or determine how much is still required to achieve compliance, is equally alarming. A municipality that cannot quantify the cost of the crisis or its funding shortfall cannot credibly claim to have a workable plan to resolve it.
Residents are paying the price for this failure. Families are forced to live with sewage in their streets and around their homes, while polluted water resources threaten public health, human dignity, and the environment.
The damage extends beyond households. Small businesses cannot attract customers, protect employees, or invest with confidence when sewage repeatedly spills into the communities where they operate.
Businesses already battling rising costs should not have to spend scarce resources mitigating the consequences of municipal failure.
BCM cannot claim to support local economic development while failing to provide the basic infrastructure every functioning business depends on.
The DA will write to the City Manager requesting that BCM make public the corrective action plan submitted in response to the directive, the rehabilitation plan and its implementation status, and the results of water samples taken from the affected tributary.
We will further request a full account of the amount spent on addressing the Pefferville spillages, together with a costed infrastructure plan to redevelop the sewerage system, secure vulnerable manholes, address unlawful or defective connections, and provide clear implementation deadlines against which the administration can be held accountable.
The DA’s 2026 Local Government Election Manifesto sets out a fundamentally different approach.
A DA-led municipality will ring-fence water and sanitation revenue for the maintenance, repair, and expansion of infrastructure, replace ageing pipes, upgrade wastewater systems, bring qualified engineers into decision-making, and publish maintenance spending, fault response times, and progress against performance targets.
The people of Pefferville are not asking for a luxury. They are asking for a municipality that performs its most basic duties.
A DA-led Buffalo City will replace daily patchwork and excuses with planned, funded, and professionally managed sewerage services that protect residents, support businesses, and get Buffalo City working for all.