Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers helps Free State cholera patients

Thanks for staying with us. Let's continue now a look at some of the

water issues, and we speak to gift of the givers. Founder, Doctor

Imtiaz, Sudirman and ha AHL water director, Aisha la her who join us

both now. Thank you so much for time this afternoon. Doctor soda,

I'm going to begin with you. You now were assisting in the area as

gift of the givers at Freder fort. Give us a sense of how the

situation is on the ground.

Good evening, it's the we got the history, even it was sad from the

time we got the yesterday afternoon, when we got the

message, we were told that, you know, there's a crisis of pallava

just picked up earlier, but there were no deaths yesterday. We were

told that there were three deaths. So anyway, they went to the family

that were affected. And all they get to from the same family, the

grandmother, the mother and aunt. And when my teams went into the

house, you know, it was a very poor situation. And there was a

teenage girl and young siblings, they were the only members of the

family left. They were traumatized, you know, they were

affected. They didn't have enough material supplies, and they said

clearly, then all the three family members at Daria, they had cramps,

they went to the hospital and they died. It says the same message for

all three. And from area, started talking and said, Look, there is a

water crisis here. We do need water. But it was late last night,

so we couldn't do much by the time we finished off in that house. But

today, wherever they went, you know, but to the current of the

municipality and the local councilors, they arranged one

place for everybody to come, and everybody wanted water, which

tells me there's a serious problem in the area, and a serious one.

Are they getting any help at all? Those two siblings?

Well, we're going to look into that. Nobody. They will need

support. It's similar to what happened in Hamas. 23 families

lost family members. We support those families, but funeral and

additional supplies for them, biscuits definitely are going to

need support. And you know, we'll come back to support them, because

when we went in, initially, it was just water and hygiene items. And

of course, we hydration solution for the people itself with the

next we didn't know. We're not sure what to expect until we get

there ourselves. The problem is we caught what multiple what

interventions. It's not only federal for in Makanda, which is

an equal life problem. Every day we're developing water for Fort,

mofot, Adelaide and other areas around because there is just not

enough water. So our water tanks have been working since 2020

and now we've got an additional crisis of more water challenges,

but this time it's infected water. You just don't know water, it's

infected water, which is making the situation more complex. Yeah,

different areas,

especially. And I'm going to come back to that in just a moment,

because, I mean, you listen to the Department of Water and

Sanitation, for example, saying that there's been a decline in the

country's water quality. And this, of course, is in the latest

report. And Aisha, I wondered, then, in the face of this, you

know, the contaminated water, as we are seeing in some of the

municipalities, as well as this cholera outbreak, what needs to be

done to make sure that the situation is brought under

control. Now,

hello bongiwe, and to the listeners as well. Thanks for this

opportunity to respond. I think the most important thing is that

the reports have been published by the Minister, by the Department of

Water and Sanitation, the very comprehensive reports, if you look

at the blue drop white report, it clearly says the treatment plants

that were assessed where the water quality is not good. So what is

needed is urgent interventions in those municipalities to ensure

safe water is delivered. So what can we do? People need to

understand where that is. The department needs to react

immediately to go out and issue boil water notices in those

municipalities where the water is at high risk. I think it's

important that people understand when the boil water notices issued

that they do not consume the dip water, because it does present a

serious health risk. It may not be cholera, but equalizes equally a

health risk as well. So the boil water notices must be issued where

the water quality is not safe. So listening to you, then, Aisha and

what the department had to say that, you know, in some of these

municipalities, you're looking at a failure because there's

instability, and they're not then testing the water as often as they

should. So the Department of Water and Sanitation should not be

waiting to be invited. It should actually be going into these

municipalities just to get a sense of the situation and to assist.

Remember the what she would already reports on certain systems

that were assessed, but the monthly results, the result that

the department gets, already tells them what the quality of the water

is. If it is a failure, it is a failure. So we already know where

the failures are. If there is no monitoring, then the potential for

contamination is there because there is no monitoring to verify

the safety. So the department already knows exactly which supply

system does not have monitoring

information, or whether where the monitoring information shows that

the water is not safe. So it's not that you have to go and

investigate which one it is. We already know which ones they are.

I think that oil water notices are.

Critical, because now we're not only talking about E coli, we're

talking about potential for cholera as well that can enter the

supply system because there's insufficient disinfection. So I

think we need to have a sense of urgency in issuing these water

notices advisories to communities. Dr cinnamon, you are on the

ground. Your team is there working, as you've said, in

various areas across the country, are these boiled water notices out

there?

No, we haven't seen any boiled water notices because we're

providing the water. So nobody's boiling water because we provide

the water. We're providing water tankers. We have brought in

additional water tankers. And you know, our teams work Monday to

Sunday, so up till now, and of course, the load sharing is not

going to be easy to keep boiling water. Keep boiling water. It's a

challenge. You know, of course, you can boil the water early, let

it fall and then pick it up later. That's practical, yes, but because

we're providing the water tankers. And of course, we've drilled

boreholes in the last three years. We've drilled 540 volts in many

parts of the country. We do have challenges in some of the

boreholes where the water quality where there is some E coli or this

chemical metals, which we have to then remove from the water. And

that's a very expensive business. Some of some of those plants have

cost us a million Rand each to purify the water, and some are

300,000 Rand, some 50,000 Rand. So every additional chip and job

besides maintaining the borehole, you got to put in filtration

plants and maintain that. But after now, look, we've been doing

well. There are many areas that require more in addition to what

Aisha I said, I would say while putting up a whole oil, notice

boiling water, notice we may have to drill more holes in more areas

to make it more accessible quickly to people. We've seen the success

of the poles. We've seen how they work. 21 in one area, 12 in

another area, 45 in another area. And it's not solving the problem,

but it's easing the situation of the people to a large extent.

Aisha, there's something that you know. Just two days ago, we were

talking to some viewers who were giving us a sense of the water

quality in their towns and how things are looking there. A number

of them are saying that their water appears to be brown and they

don't know it looks like it's got sand, but they don't know what's

going on. Are you able to tell them, if they're watching what's

happening there?

Look, it's great. I forgot to look at water and decide what the

quality is. Water can have sand even stop free of pathogens. Water

can be absolutely clear and have pathogens. So you cannot evaluate

the safety of your water just by looking at it. If it smells funny,

yeah, I would be suspicious of that, but you cannot smell

pathogens as well. So the color of the water alone does not give you

any indication. But we as human beings, obviously, if we see dirty

water, we don't want to drink it, because we believe that it's not

galatical, and that is a good thing to go go by, because that

means whatever has happened upstream has ensured that there is

sand in the water which could have contaminants associated with it.

So yes, it could be an indication that the water is not safe, but

not necessarily interesting. Very interesting point there Aisha, and

you know, one doesn't even think about something along those lines,

because as soon as you say someone sees brown water, they think

definitely unsafe. But let me thank you both for your time, and

let's continue then to monitor this particular situation. And I

do appreciate your time this afternoon. That was Doctor Imtiaz

Suleiman, founder of the gift of the givers, as well as AHL water

director Aisha Lahey.