People collecting water from a water tanker. File Picture: Khaya Ngwenya Independent Newspapers
RESIDENTS of Trenance Park have been without water for a week, prompting the Verulam Water Crisis Committee to seek urgent intervention from Deputy President Paul Mashatile.
The Verulam Water Crisis Committee (VWCC) said some residents in the Trenance Park area have been without water for a week while the City contends that the issue has been resolved.
This comes after the committee wrote a letter to Mashatile on Sunday seeking direct intervention to address the continuing water crisis that has plagued parts of Verulam.
“It is with deep concern that I must report residents have now endured a full week without access to water. This situation represents an automatic infringement on basic human rights.”
The letter claims that recent efforts to address water supply issues with the City have been met with a lack of co-operation and communication from the eThekwini Municipality’s management of Water and Sanitation Services.
Over a year ago, the committee, together with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), established a war room to address the ongoing water crisis.
The committee is urging Mashatile to take immediate and decisive administrative action against the errant officials responsible for this state of affairs.
“The current state of service delivery within the eThekwini Municipality jurisdiction is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated any longer by our organisation and the affected communities,” said the committee.
Municipal spokesperson Gugu Sisilana said there was a challenge with water in the area for three days due to a water pump failure.
“Our teams have repaired the pump and water supply has been restored. There are five reservoirs, and all five reservoirs have water,” she said.
Sisilana said the City communicates with its customers via media statements, toll-free numbers, and emails.
Responding to the City’s contention that the issue has been resolved, committee spokesperson Roshan Lil-Ruthan said: “Clearly, they are not in touch with the clients and the residents and ratepayers of this area, because they would have known that some of these areas didn't have water prior to Christmas.”
Lil-Ruthan said now that the pumps are repaired, there is still no water in that community.
He said in the Trenance Park area, several roads have no water, including Madrona, Bottlebrush, Havenwood, and Tangerine, while the Hilltop area and parts of Mt View are also affected.
Professor Faizal Bux, director of the Institute for Water and Wastewater Technology at the Durban University of Technology, said it appeared that
the demand is more than the supply as too many people are coming into the City.
Bux said uMngeni-uThukela, which supplies water to eThekwini, is bound by a license that does not allow them to supply the City with additional water.
“However, the non-revenue water, which is water that is lost in the city because of leaks and theft, sits at more than 55%,” he said.
He said even if the demand is outstripping the supply, if the City addresses the non-revenue water problem and fixes the leaks as well as conducts maintenance, the problem could be solved.
“That would actually help substantially to solve the problem, but I don’t see evidence of the city moving in that direction to reduce non-revenue water loss,” said Bux.