Thousands of households in water-stressed areas of the Eastern Cape are set to benefit from a water provisioning initiative by the Amatola Water Board. The programme will benefit 120,000 households a day who live in rural parts of the province. In a bid to ensure water security in rural areas, the state-owned water utility is appointing service providers to supply, deliver and install 600 rainwater tanks to the Eastern Cape’s six kingdom palaces.
Both AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo and premier Oscar Mabuyane have expressed shock at the recent mass killings in the Eastern Cape. This follows the mass shooting last week of seven family members at Tantseka village, near the king’s Bumbane Great Place in Mthatha. Mabuyane, who described 2022 as the worst year for killings in the province, said he had written to police minister Bheki Cele, calling for national police intervention to deal with this crisis.
Residents of the small village of Tantseka in the Sithebe administrative area, a stone's throw from the Bumbane Great Place, have been left terrified and disbelieving after seven people died in a hail of bullets in one of the rural homes late on Wednesday.
Seven relatives, aged between 29 and 79, were gunned down while mourning the death of another family member in Tantseka village in Sithebe administrative area near the Bumbane Great Place, near Qunu on Wednesday night. The group was allegedly accosted by armed gunmen who demanded R50,000 in stokvel monies, according to surviving family members.