SOWETAN | More action needed after cholera crisis

In various media interviews overtime, Tshwane metro officials glibly make the point that there is no established link between the cholera outbreak which killed dozens of people in Hammanskraal last year and the quality of its water supply to the area. 

Water tests, done for the city, have not found evidence of cholera in its sources, they maintain. 

This narrative, while technically correct, is disingenuous. Water sources tested did not reveal evidence of cholera at the time of testing. 

This does not conclusively rule out that the water consumed by the Hammanskraal community, leading up to the outbreak in May last year could not have been contaminated at the time of consumption. 

While it is plausible that there may have been other sources of contamination, water remains the most likely source to cause widespread infections in that community. 

On Saturday, the city announced that five employees who were undergoing a disciplinary hearing had been suspended after they were found guilty of one of the four charges relating to their decision to award tenderpreneur Edwin Sodi a contract he was neither qualified nor needed for. 

Sodi’s company Blackhead Consulting was part of a consortium given the contract to upgrade the Rooiwal water treatment plant, meant to supply Hammanskraal. They did not finish the project. 

An earlier probe had found the contract was irregularly awarded but a disciplinary hearing has since found the officials responsible not guilty on three of the charges. 

The acquittal of the officials on those charges is inexplicable. Not only did Sodi’s company not meet the grade for the job, his professional services were unnecessary for the project. 

The fact that those responsible for his appointment are found not liable for their role is a slap in the face of a community consistently failed by those in power. 

We welcome the decision by the city manager Johann Mettler to take the hearing outcome on review at the labour court. 

The cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal was man-made, through a series of decisions that sought to serve the interests of anyone but this community. 

It would be a travesty of justice for those who played a part in some of those decisions not to be held accountable for giving a greedy chancer a contract he had no business getting.