The civil rights organisation AfriForum this past week collected water samples in the Hammanskraal area and concluded that the water is not safe for human consumption. This follows after various reports appeared in the media regarding the quality of the area’s drinking water.
Water samples were collected at the Jubilee District Hospital and the local police academy and sent to a SANS accredited laboratory for analysis. The results were thereafter also sent to a water specialist for commentary regarding the results.
According to Jaco Grobbelaar, AfriForum’s District Coordinator for Greater Pretoria, the drinking water contains harmful materials that can impair people’s health.
“According to the results of the water sample that was collected at the police academy, it contains seven colonies E. coli per 100 ml water, which is extremely harmful for people’s health. Apart from the E. coli, both samples also contained increased levels of sodium, ammonia and manganese that exceed the SANS 241 limit for drinking water.”
AfriForum is encouraging the residents of Hammanskraal to rather use bottled water until the municipality can confirm that the water once again complies with SANS 241 regulations for clean drinking water and is safe for human consumption.
“AfriForum will continuously evaluate the quality of the water to protect the constitutional rights of Hammanskraal’s residents and to ensure that they are supplied with clean drinking water. Furthermore AfriForum also warned the municipality to get the water up to the required standard as soon as possible to allow residents to enjoy safe drinking water,” adds Grobbelaar.
AfriForum sent a letter to the municipality to inform them about the problem and to request that the municipality in the meantime utilises alternative resources to supply the residents with clean drinking water.
See the report here:
2019-08-18 Afriforum-Watersamples