By Odwa Mkentane
The Motor Industry Staff Association (MISA) is demanding accountability from the City of Tshwane after 408 people, most of them children under the age of four, fell ill with gastrointestinal infections linked to contaminated drinking water in Bronkhorstspruit and surrounding communities.
Investigations have found that unchlorinated water from a sewage-polluted river was distributed between 24 September and 14 October due to failures in the city’s chlorine supply.
Laboratory tests detected high levels of E. coli, while further tests identified norovirus, Campylobacter and Shigella in patient samples. No deaths have been reported, as calls grow for accountability and measures to prevent a similar incident.
MISA Chief Executive Officer Martlé Keyter said the city’s failure to warn residents was equally alarming. The Compulsory Standards for water services require municipalities to notify communities when water is unsafe for drinking, cooking, washing or bathing.
“Families are now paying the price for that failure. Working parents have been forced to buy safe drinking water while covering the costs of medical treatment for sick children and family members. Keeping residents in the dark about untreated water is a betrayal. For three weeks, mothers bathed their babies and prepared meals with water the city had not made safe.
“Whether this was negligence or a deliberate failure to communicate, someone must be held accountable. Our children are not collateral damage. The municipality must also conduct ongoing water quality testing and publish the results until independent authorities confirm that the water is safe for consumption,” Keyter said.
Photo: MISA/FB
