South Africans have been united by the severe drought, which has wreaked havoc in Cape Town and other areas of the country, according to cultural icon, Bhai Azad. He said that despite the differences and prejudices among the people, they have come together “in cash and kind” to bring relief to the millions of people who have been hit by the drought. “I am truly amazed the manner and intensity with which so many people are contributing to help those affected by the water shortages. I have drilled a borehole on my property in Riverside Durban, installed a state of the art bottling plant and am pumping tens of thousands of liters, which I am sending to Cape Town. This is only one effort, there are others who are contributing in cash, providing trucks to transport supplies to the affected areas and then there are those who are sending money,” said Mr Azad.
His neighbours are also busy at work; they have a well, which was established more than a century ago. Work crews are working day and night to pumping water from a well at the Soofie Darbar in Riverside in Durban and then shipping it out to Cape Town to provide supplies for the poor in the drought stricken city. So far an entire articulated truck and trailer has delivered tens of thousands of litres and this week another truckload arrived in Cape Town. According to Mr Rashid Dawood water would be pumped out, processed and filled into five-liter containers and sent to Cape Town as long as the Darbar receive donations from the public. “We are sending as much as we can Cape Town for those who cannot afford to buy supplies and we hope that this would help bring some relief to the many people who would be left without water.”
The Gift of the Givers have drilled five boreholes in the Witperd area of Beaufort West providing 250 000 litres per day into the Gamka Dam pipeline. Beaufort West now have a constant supply from boreholes. Drilling has started in De Doorns and will be 2extended to Tous Rivier, Tulbagh, Bonnievale and Ceres soon. day to the town. Huis Hesperos and Huis Three additional boreholes have been drilled in the Walker Dam area which provides another 100 000 litres per Johannes (both homes for the elderly) in Beaufort West now have a constant supply from boreholes. Bottled water was delivered to and has been stored in Laingsburg. CEO of the Gift of Givers, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman said the organisations drought intervention programme in Cape started last year. “Gift of the Givers appreciates the huge effort underway for the collection of bottled water, the cash contributions, sponsorship of boreholes, JoJo tanks, warehousing space and free transport. Forty million Rand in fodder was delivered to hundreds of farmers; 4000 food parcels were distributed to farm labourers who lost their jobs because of the drought,” he said.
Officials visited Khayelitsha Hospital to assess needs and Community leaders have been engaged as to priorities needs. Tygerberg Hospital and Maitlands Cottage Children’s Orthopaedic Hospital have also requested assistance.
A water engineer in Durban, Mr Mohamed Vawda said the current Water Shortage Crisis in Cape Town is a reminder for each of us to value and appreciate one of the most important and life preserving resources that God Almighty has blessed us with Water. “With clean running and relatively cheap ‘water on tap’ being easily available to most of the population living in urban areas over the last few decades, this valuable resource has been taken for granted, with consequent wastage and abuse. We are commanded to “use water sparingly even if we are in a stream of flowing water,” which clearly highlights our obligation to utilise this valuable resource in a responsible manner.
Southern Africa is regarded as a water scare region, with limited available surface water resources due to the relatively low average annual rainfall levels. With ever increasing water demands we have reached a point where the total water demand requirement in SA has reached, and in many areas exceeds the available surface water resources. The Government has plans to build more dams, ground water abstraction schemes and desalination projects, however there is a huge backlog in developing these bulk water projects due to funding constraints. Therefore ‘Water Conservation and Demand Management’ has been recognised to be an effective and sustainable intervention to mitigate against this challenge of balancing water supply availability with water consumption demand. A paradigm shift in terms of lifetstyle changes is necessary for our future survival. Every citizen needs to be involved “ Vawda said.