Durban — Durban North residents and businesses do not want a repeat of the water crisis that besieged the suburb for eight days, with some restaurants having to close their doors.
On Monday, a heated argument ensued between residents and City officials during a meeting in uMhlanga. The residents carried placards, some of which read: “We need help now.”
Residents questioned officials as to why they were not fixing the problem instead of visiting the reservoirs. Some residents demanded to be taken to where the municipality was fixing the problem to verify whether the officials were being truthful.
uMhlanga Tourism Association chairperson Duncan Heafield said the crisis was already having a negative impact as some businesses were closed, and it could be catastrophic if not resolved urgently.
“Already, the tourism sector in uMhlanga is being affected. Some businesses, including restaurants, were forced to close. There have been hotel booking cancellations. This can be catastrophic, especially in the tourism sector, if not resolved urgently since uMhlanga is a big part of KZN tourism,” said Heafield.
Heafield also said that residents were right in expressing how angry they were because no one had provided a clear update on the matter as to when it would be fixed.
“We are not happy, and we are so frustrated. However, at the same time, I think we need to give authorities time to deal with matters,” said Heafield.
Chris Sweidan, a resident and member of the uMhlanga Business Association, said it seemed like officials did not know where the problem was, and this was the reason residents could not get any feedback. He said at least three coffee shops had closed because of the water problem.
“It has been more than eight days without water. We can’t even flush our toilets. We can’t even continue with our normal daily lives. Everything is at a standstill. What we want is a time frame and clarity. This is really affecting us,” he said.
Ward 35 councillor Nicole Bollman said the outage affected between 80 000 and 100 000 people in Durban North.
The chairpersons of various committees in eThekwini Municipality conducted site visits to affected water reservoirs in uMhlanga and Durban North, on Monday.
After days without a water supply to their taps, residents visited one of the reservoirs in Durban North on Saturday, which revealed that an air valve in a water pipeline was tampered with and another valve was vandalised.
On Saturday, the eThekwini Water and Sanitation (EWS) technical teams repaired the valves and opened a case of sabotage at the Greenwood Park Police Station, the City said.
The municipality said it had devised a plan to address this situation by supplying water to the northern areas from a different reservoir at Umgeni-uThukela Water’s Durban Heights waterworks.
This was intended to bypass the section of the northern aqueduct suspected to have the restriction, which has still not been identified.
As a short-term intervention, the municipality said, tankers would continue to supply water to residents until the system fully recovered. eThekwini Municipality councillor Nkosenhle Madlala said: “We take the opportunity to convey our sincere apologies for the inconvenience that the prolonged water shortage has caused to our customers and visitors.”
Madlala said the municipality had invested R132.8m in the acquisition of 55 new tankers, delivered in August. Madlala said to ensure supply of potable water to the communities, the municipality had budgeted R1 billion for water services for the 2023/2024 financial year.
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