THE eThekwini Municipality had scheduled a planned 24-hour water shutdown on Tuesday for new valves to be installed in the Northern Aqueduct pipeline. But today, the city communicated on its Facebook page that the shutdown had been postponed until further notice.
In the statement, the city said the reason for the postponement was due to extensive assessments conducted by its water and sanitation technical team.
The aim of installing new valves was to ensure the efficiency of water flow and increase pressure within the pipeline.
The shutdown would have impacted areas north of Durban, including Phoenix, Verulam, Tongaat, Umhlanga, Cornubia and Durban North. Some of these areas have been without water for several months.
Roshan Lil-Ruthan, of the Verulam Water Crisis Committee, said: “The community is fed-up with lies and false promises from the municipality.”
He said it was disheartening to see elderly people suffer, while collecting water from tankers.
“The community will hold the government to ransom if they do not come up with tangible evidence that progress is being made.”
He said he had escalated the matter to higher authorities.
Mervin Reddy, from the Voice of Phoenix, said: “We are a patient community, so we are willing to give the municipality until the end of the month to sort out the issue, especially if this means the issue will be completely resolved. If nothing is resolved then we will take legal action.”