MAKHANDA, Eastern Cape – The South African Human Rights Commission has published its long-anticipated report on the chronic water and sanitation failures plaguing the Makana Local Municipality, detailing how prolonged infrastructure decay has compromised residents’ health, safety, and constitutional rights across Makhanda, Alicedale, and Salem.
Commission investigators, who formally subpoenaed municipal executives last year to address mounting complaints, confirmed that years of neglect have allowed sewage spillages, recurring water outages, and structural deterioration to become entrenched across the district. While the commission emphasized that its constitutional mandate is limited to issuing formal recommendations rather than enforcing compliance, its findings have been backed by direct site inspections conducted alongside community organizations prior to publication.
At the center of the sanitation emergency is an overwhelmed waste treatment facility in Unit 10, which routinely discharges untreated effluent into a local watercourse. Although recent flooding intensified the overflow, residents and field investigators noted that surrounding ground remains saturated year-round due to persistent leakage. The contaminated runoff moves through Joza, one of the municipality’s oldest settlements, skirts the Oval Stadium precinct, and converges on N Street. There, approximately fifty households still depend on pit latrines.
Municipal waste collection services have largely failed to service these buckets on schedule, leaving residents with limited disposal options. Many report emptying raw waste directly into nearby tributaries that eventually merge with the Kowie River. When combined with the treatment plant’s overflow and seasonal rainfall, the resulting surge frequently submerges under-bridge crossings. Pedestrians and motorists are routinely forced onto narrow, unstable detours to avoid slips or vehicle damage.
Road infrastructure has deteriorated in parallel, a problem locally traced back to the area’s Grahamstown era. While recent injections of National Treasury and Eastern Cape provincial funding have enabled partial rehabilitation efforts—including the installation of interlocking paving in place of aging tar surfaces in Joza and surrounding neighborhoods—numerous residential and industrial routes remain severely compromised by deep potholes.
Financial mismanagement has further stalled recovery. The Auditor-General has repeatedly flagged chronic underspending and irregular allocation of maintenance budgets across multiple reporting cycles. In November 2024, the Special Investigating Unit executed coordinated raids on the municipality’s financial and administrative offices to trace the expenditure of millions previously allocated for water and sanitation upgrades. Investigators are scrutinizing discrepancies surrounding critical pump components that were reportedly left stranded in Benoni. While municipal records indicated full payment to contracted suppliers, service providers maintained they never received compensation. Despite substantial historical investments, residents continue to interact with outdated networks, including active asbestos piping that predates recent revival projects.
Accountability measures have previously targeted municipal leadership. The local municipal manager faced formal action after investigators uncovered essential drain-maintenance equipment sitting idle in storage for extended periods. The SAHRC’s latest assessment is expected to determine whether these compounded failures breach constitutional guarantees to adequate housing, sanitation, and a healthy environment.
As the findings enter the public domain, communities across Makana are urging provincial and national departments to convert the commission’s recommendations into immediate infrastructure interventions. For residents, the report serves as an official validation of daily hardships that have eroded basic dignity and disrupted livelihoods for years.