Durban — The DA in KwaZulu-Natal has called on the water and sanitation department to appoint uMngeni-uThukela Water as the water service provider in eThekwini following the persistent water challenges facing the city.
Currently, the water body is supplying bulk water to the city which the municipality reticulates.
Speaking during the party’s picket outside Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre, where the eThekwini Municipality full council meeting was taking place, DA provincial leader Francois Rodgers said the party met the water body on Tuesday and the body agreed to take over as water supplier for eThekwini if asked to do so through the relevant legislative framework.
Rodgers also revealed that in their meeting with the water body, it emerged that eThekwini was being oversupplied with water so it was a lie that the water challenges were being caused by the shortage of water from uMngeni-uThukela Water. He said the problem was with eThekwini, which was failing to curb water losses costing the city R144 million which it could not account for.
“The eThekwini Municipality’s water unit under Ednick Msweli and EFF’s Themba Mvubu as the head, of infrastructure committee, has failed dismally to supply residents with basic services such as water.
“It is on that score that the DA was calling for the total takeover of the city’s water supplies to place it under the service provider, which we feel should be uMngeni-uThukela Water,” said Rodgers.
Furthermore, the DA said it had asked its member of Parliament Leon Basson, who also sat on Parliament’s water portfolio committee, to start engaging the Water and Sanitation Department to place the water services of eThekwini under the service provider, saying that the legislation was permitting this and was informed that it had happened in the past.
The DA also revealed that uMngeni-uThukela Water expressed concern that eThekwini was a growing risk to the water board because it was the single largest customer they had, therefore if the city collapsed, so would uMngeni-uThukela, threatening water security to KwaZulu-Natal.
uMngeni-uThukela Water has already taken over the maintenance of water works stations in the city and was working jointly with the municipality to rebuild the water infrastructure that was damaged by floods.
The DA delegation also held engagements with residents and business owners from Phoenix, who the party said had expressed their frustration and hopelessness at the water crisis they endured daily.
“It is now crucial that Parliament steps in and urgently convenes public hearings into the continued water crisis as well as forcing the eThekwini Municipality to account for this disaster under their watch,” said the DA.
The DA was now banking on its coming motion to dissolve the council and go for fresh elections. If that failed, the party said if their coalition with the IFP won the elections, it would place the city under administration.
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