ANRISA SUBROYAN
WHILE residents in the northern suburbs are optimistic that their water woes will be resolved after today’s planned shutdown, they have warned they will take the municipality to court if the problem is not fixed.
The eThekwini Municipality said in a statement that the planned water shutdown – to restore the affected valves - would take place from 8pm tonight until 5pm tomorrow (Wednesday).
Phoenix, Mount Edgecombe, Cornubia and Durban North are among the areas that will be affected by the shutdown.
According to city spokesperson, Gugu Sisilana, the shutdown was definitely going ahead.
This comes after the city and the Department of Water and Sanitation failed to honour the last two deadlines to restore the water supply in the affected areas.
Voice of Phoenix spokesperson, Mervin Reddy, said: “It’s a relief that this is finally happening. It’s been a long battle for over two years with water outages. Hopefully, after this shutdown our water will be restored fully.
“There has been improvement in Phoenix with the water crisis but this shutdown to fix the valves is crucial,” said Reddy
He said the community would be very upset if it did not resolve the problem.
“It will prompt us, together with Verulam, to take this matter to court,” added Reddy.