Public Health Disaster: 400 Sick, Mainly Kids, A Government-Caused Crisis

I think it is performative politicking just two weeks before an election. I don't think there is enough evidence to suggest yet that she should face criminal charges. And I find it particularly extraordinary that the economic freedom fighters who are in that coalition ruling in the city of Tshwane have decided to open a case against their own mayor. I just think it's foolish. I think it's performative. I think that it's silly because I think that, as you just noticed, the city of Tshwane's government should be cucked.

Out to the highest order for what has happened. But I also think that politicians cruelly trying to take advantage of a moment of serious crisis in a bad faith way should be condemned. So I completely welcome any and everybody criticizing the city of Tshwane for this happening, whether you're a politician or not. But laying criminal charges against the mayor right now is a silly, stupid, performative waste of time. And in Siles Brink's case,

Trying to make people worry that there's a cholera outbreak is a deeply, deeply bad faith, destructive, and I think immoral waste of time. And particularly for the, just to loop back to the EFF, I understand why they are fighting this hard because the MMC for health in Tshwane is the EFF's Tsechovatzo Mashabella. And so, obviously, there is a moment now where ActionSA apparatchics on Twitter and elsewhere are trying to.

Lay the blame for this entire thing, not at necessity Moya or the city manager, but actually at MMC Marsha Bella's door. Now, so I would like to tell you a little bit about her statement of what happens. Okay, so the statement reads: The office of the MMC for Health notes with concern a statement by ActionSA that seeks to place responsibility for the Bronkhorstspruit water crisis on the city's health department. This is not supported by facts. At the time where they claim 458 residents now, most of them young children have fallen.

Ill, residents deserve an honest account. The operation and maintenance of water treatment plants, including procurement of treatment chemicals such as chlorine, falls under the Regional Operations and Coordination Department. ROC delivers the city's essential regional services, including water and sanitation. That falls under the portfolio of the executive mayor. All cool, all true. And then they claim what they actually did: the health department. The Department of Water and Sanitation found water from the Bronchosprates treatment plant was not chlorinated from 24.

Until 14th of October. At no point in that period did ROC inform the health department that the plant had run out of chlorine. Had we been told, residents could have been warned immediately. Instead, the health department acted as soon as the health district, Tawana Health District, alerted us to a sharp rise in patients with diarrhea and stomach-related illnesses. Without knowing the cause, we took multiple water samples on the 13th of October. We informed residents publicly and issued a statement on the 15th. When the first sample tested positive for E. coli, we deployed environmental health practitioners and health.