Pretoria - As water woes persist amid a cholera outbreak, residents in Hammanskraal have begun selling clean water to fellow residents in a bid to help with clean water shortages and to make a quick buck.
One of them is resident Dipuo Mukosi, who grew up in Hammanskraal.
Mukosi began her small water sales business about two years ago and says she’s had to rope in her 22-year-old unemployed daughter to service the opposite end of the streets.
“The reason for me to start the business was that there had also been a market for water in Hammanskraal,” she said.
Another resident, Peter Seaki, said he was concerned about families who can’t afford to buy water as he buys five litres of bottled water daily at a cost of R26.
Seaki said water was being supplied by the municipality via trucks that roam the streets but they are not consistent and the concern of the community was that the tanks may not be cleaned adequately and this could be a source of the disease.
He said he is in support of the shutdown that will take place on May 25 to get the government’s attention.
The Hammanskraal area faced a grave problem just this week when 15 people succumbed to the cholera outbreak.
A Somali national, Solomon Kerobe, who runs a small business, said the water sales fluctuate according to the season but has become noticeable since the news of the cholera outbreak.
He now stacks his water stock on any available open space on the shop floor. “Since the outbreak, the sales of five and 10 litres of bottled water have been moving faster and now I have to up my stock,” he said.
The death toll is currently at least 15 lives.