Boxing
Misgund is a little rural neighborhood in the Langkloof, Eastern Cape. The area is understood for its apple, pear and peach farming. The settlement is home to about 500 homes, generally RDP homes, and due to its distance to farms numerous homeowners are existing or previous farmworkers.
Homeowners state getting sufficient water to fulfill their fundamental requirements has actually ended up being a day-to-day battle given that 2011.
At Twinkle Daycare, personnel shop water in containers for the kids and bring pails to flush the toilets when the taps run dry.
Crèche owner and primary Elize Berries stated they cater for kids aged 4 months to 5 years of ages.
“Every day we get water for about one hour. Some months there isn’t water for numerous days. We’ve never ever had constant running water,” stated Berries.
Water is required throughout the day for drinking, preparing food, cleaning hands and flushing the toilets, she stated.
Taps have water from about 5pm to 7pm, and in some cases for 2 or 3 hours over weekends, she stated.
“Sometimes it’s on throughout the day, however that’s an issue since individuals are at work so they can not fill their containers.”
She stated the water has a brown colour and “does not taste great”.
“We can’t clean our white clothing with this water due to the fact that there will be brown marks,” stated Berries.
When GroundUp checked out the crèche, water drawn the previous night was dirty, and all the taps we opened were empty.
At the crèche, faucet water is utilized generally for flushing toilets and mopping floorings. For drinking and cooking, Berries depends on rainwater and water from an employee’s tank. She purchases 5 litres of water for R20 about 4 times a month when the saved supply goes out.
The water lack includes yet another expense to a crèche that makes it through on thin margins. Signed up as a not-for-profit, Berries stated her applications for federal government financing have actually been not successful. Moms and dads pay R280 per kid a month, covering lease, electrical energy, porridge and other expenses. The crèche presently has 18 kids, below the approximately 40 it sees in peak farming season. Berries pays about R500 a month in lease and R300 for electrical power.
“At the end of the day, I have the minimum,” she stated.
Living close-by is 69-year-old widow Litesia Kiewiets. She was born in Misgund and has actually constantly lived here. In 2011 she got an RDP home.
“When we relocated we had water and it was tidy, however as the years passed things simply worsened and even worse,”she stated.
Kiewiets gathers rainwater in a tank and numerous containers and drums to utilize for cooking and drinking. She needs to purchase water if it has actually not drizzled and the tank is empty. When the taps have water she fills her bath to shop water.
“We’re having a tough time here … The faucet water is brown. When it rains, we capture the water in containers and shop it so we can utilize it. That’s what we have that’s drinkable,” she stated.
Kiewiets lives with her 2 children and 4 grandchildren. She depends on the older individual’s grant of R2,400 and 2 of her grandchildren get the kid assistance grant of R580 each. She leases curtaining for functions to supplement the home earnings.
Sarah van Rooyen lives close by with her spouse and kids.
“We are having a hard time. There are times when for 2 or 3 days there’s no water,”she stated.
Van Rooyen stated it has actually been in this manner given that she relocated to the location in 2011.
Her other half has an irreversible task on a farm, and her child and 3 boys are seasonal farmworkers. Her youngest kid, who participates in school in George, gets an impairment grant. When local water stops working, her partner often brings water home from work.
Citizens have actually raised the issue with the town previously, Van Rooyen stated. “They understand what’s going on here … You can go without food, however not without water.”
“Every time it’s elections, these individuals come and provide empty pledges about how the water problem is going to be repaired, so citizens await that. When you’ve voted and the elections are over, everybody is gone. We do not see them once again and we’re back in the very same boat where we began.”
Kou-Kamma’s 2025/26 draft yearly report states that 12,820 homes throughout the town have an appropriate water system, while 873 fall listed below the minimum service level. It does not define whether those families remain in Misgund. The report acknowledges that undependable supply impacts poorer families most, considering that wealthier families and companies can install their own tanks, boreholes or recycling systems.
It associates a few of this to an unequal split of water in between bad settlements and the farming sector.
The report likewise states non-revenue water (water lost before it reaches a paying consumer) costs the town millions, partially due to the fact that lots of bad homes utilize more than the complimentary six-kilolitre month-to-month allowance. Efforts to impose its indigent and complimentary fundamental services policy have actually had restricted success, and “unlimited water gain access to continues”.
What the water quality information reveals
Information from the Department of Water and Sanitation’s regulative control panel programs that over the previous 12 months, water evaluated in Misgund fulfilled intense health microbiological requirements just 50% of the time. Severe health microbiological compliance steps whether drinking water includes faecal germs above a defined limitation that can posture an instant health danger.
Visual compliance, which connects to the water’s colour, taste and smell, was 0%. Disinfectant compliance, which determines whether needed disinfectant levels, consisting of recurring disinfectant in cured water, are kept, was likewise 0%. Absolutely no percent implies the screening is not being done.
Functional compliance, which examines how effectively treatment systems are run and the threats to facilities, stood at 67.9%.
The Minimum Requirement Programme(MRP)determines whether the town performed the variety of water evaluates it was needed to, with complete compliance set at 100 %. In Misgund, MRP compliance was 39.2 %, implying just that share of the needed tests were really performed.
Dry spell, floods and shared resources
The town’s draft 2025/26 yearly report explained water shortage as “a standard” in Kou-Kamma, especially in the Langkloof. Heavy rains and flooding in May had actually harmed facilities however renewed raw water sources. The report kept in mind that the scenario is aggravated by sharing resources with the surrounding farms.
To cope, it stated, water is trucked daily to vital locations utilizing 2 12,000-litre tankers owned by Amatola Water and a 6,000-litre tanker owned by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, with citizens gathering it.
In the foreword to the report, acting local supervisor Ntombikayise Mnyengeza acknowledged that citizens have “borne the force of collapsing wastewater systems, undependable supply of water and degrading facilities”, and she stated resolving this is “not optional; it is an immediate necessary”.
She stated the town is prioritising facilities repair for water filtration and sanitation this fiscal year, dealing with provincial and nationwide departments for technical and financial backing, and will execute a comprehensive facilities healing strategy with clear timelines.
Kou-Kamma’s own reporting recommends it has actually restricted capability to resolve the stockpile. The report states the town has a”stagnant and low income base”, with a collection rate of 45 %, well listed below the 95 % standard. It associates this partially to 31 % of families being indigent. Indigent families consist of jobless individuals and seasonal employees on low incomes in farming, forestry and tourist.
The town’s minimal income streams likewise make it reliant on nationwide grants to broaden real estate and fundamental services. As an outcome, the report stated, the town can just run a “reactive upkeep and maintenance program”, doing not have a possession management strategy or a proactive upkeep technique.
The town states approximately R210-million is required to update and preserve water and sanitation facilities throughout Kou-Kamma. It notes continuous difficulties consisting of health and wellness issues, an absence of access to fundamental water and sanitation services in some locations, consistent sewage system obstructions from the small-bore (normally pipelines with 5-10cm size) system, collapsing sewage-disposal tanks and contamination of waterways and the environment.
Misgund’s bulk supply of water was updated with financing from the Regional Bulk Infrastructure Grant to deal with water lacks in the town. Kou-Kamma Municipality performed the upgrade with Amatola Water as the carrying out representative. The updated plant is meant to deal with both groundwater and surface area water and was turned over to the town in March 2026. The town’s yearly report states the borehole water was evaluated and standard disinfection through manual chlorination was being done at the primary tank.
We asked the town why citizens continue to experience periodic supply, the discoloured water, current water-quality screening, emergency situation water arrangement, and the factors for the brief supply durations reported by locals. Numerous efforts to get their reaction went unanswered. It will be included when gotten. DM
Released by GroundUp
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