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The Democratic Alliance Caucus in Buffalo City condemns the strike action by workers of Amatola Water which has resulted in tens of thousands of residents being deprived of water for the last two weeks.

Amatola Water has a contract with the Buffalo City Municipality to provide water to the Metro. The municipality must launch an urgent investigation to ascertain if Amatola Water was in breach of contract by failing in this duty.

The inaction of the Amatola Water leadership in addressing the grievances of their workers resulted in their strike action which has negatively affected residents, businesses and schools.

The possibility of a strike by their workers should have been an identified high risk and the resulting crisis clearly indicates that they were totally unprepared for such an action. The failure by the Amatola Water leadership to have contingency plans in place highlights their incompetence.

The inaction by the leadership of Amatola Water enabled their staff to cause community health and safety risks, as residents were unable to access clean drinking water.

The DA has written to the Mayor and the City Manager to request that they:

Determine whether the water provision contract they have with Amatola Water has been breached.

Explore alternatives to the contract in order to be independent of Amatola Water.

Commit to properly budgeting for the maintenance and renewal of their own water infrastructure. This will ensure that the current water shortages that are not linked to the Amatola Water strike is rectified with immediate effect.

Provide residents with timeous, accurate and comprehensive information on the causes of water supply shortages.

Act in a proactive manner to prevent the spread of misinformation arising from inadequate or conflicting reports from the municipality.

The residents of the Buffalo City Municipality deserve better than to be held to ransom by striking workers, incompetent officials and an uncaring ANC-government. The DA will never stop fighting for the rights of the people of Buffalo City.

Issued by DA Buffalo City Caucus Leader, Cllr Sue Bentley