Durban — Newly appointed City Manager Musa Mbhele has laid down the law and called for harsh punishment for those involved in sabotaging eThekwini Municipality infrastructure.
Providing commentary to the Daily News following Tuesday’s city council deliberations, Mbhele said the city was building back from the disasters of the devastating floods and social unrest which have ravaged the infrastructure of eThekwini.
On top of that, Mbhele claimed it had also emerged that rogue elements within the municipality have been involved in damaging the city’s fleet in order to sabotage service delivery.
“The costs of infrastructure delivery tools have gone up as a result of costs associated with the struggling global economy. On the other hand, the city needs to safeguard every asset at its disposal to continue to provide much-needed services to the people of eThekwini,” he said.
“During engagement with staff discussing issues around trying to refocus operations so that we effectively fast-track this process of recovery, it emerged that there are some rogue elements who are alleged to be tampering with trucks and sabotaging service delivery. As city manager I have made it clear that those elements will be severely dealt with, and faster than they thought, within the confines of policy and legislation governing consequence management in the workplace,” Mbhele said.
The eThekwini Municipality said it was deliberating whether it could fund armed guards at key infrastructure points to prevent vandalism, and what was labelled “sabotage on water and electricity sites”.
The report on the state of water provision and wastewater management in the city stated that water and sanitation infrastructure was extensively damaged during the April 2022 floods.
Unrelenting demand, ageing infrastructure and rampant vandalism have worsened the situation, leaving the city with insufficient capacity to render adequate service delivery.
The head of Water and Sanitation, Ednick Msweli, outlined comprehensive interventions into the existing 25-year masterplan, which will provide for planning and budgeting upgrades, new infrastructure and other interventions on an ongoing basis.
Last week, a video emerged on social media when a disgruntled resident spoke about a break-in at the Currie Road Reservoir on the Berea. This raised concern about whether the reservoir had been contaminated.
Ward 31 Councillor Remona Mckenzie said vagrants had gained access to the reservoir premises.
“Council does need to prioritise the protection of our drinking water. Some of the serious challenges the department is facing are continuous vandalism within reservoir sites, steel theft for scrap, and padlocks being stolen.”
Msweli said the site had now been secured, and the city continued to monitor water quality in that reservoir to ensure it met acceptable standards.
At the Johanna Road pump station in Sea Cow Lake, Msweli touched on the issue of numerous illegal electricity connections and vandalism at the site, which had led to the fish dying off in the uMngeni River.
“When a team arrives to fix the pump station, we come under fire from the informal settlement. Our guys even get shot at,” he said.
DA executive committee member councillor Yogis Govender said it was not ordinary vandalism, and that she was concerned over the “stripping” of infrastructure, and that besides reporting it to the police, nothing was being done.
“We need properly armed security on site. Some sites have security, but are still getting hit. Let us amplify the security,” she said.
IFP exco member councillor Mdu Nkosi said presentations needed to be done regularly, and called for beefed-up security.
An in-loco inspection of the sites needed to be conducted and those that needed security should be noted, said ANC councillor Nkosenhle Madlala.
eThekwini deputy mayor Philani Mavundla said the National Key Points Act that provided for the declaration and protection of sites of national strategic importance against sabotage should be explored at a municipal level.
Mavundla said the city needed to find the money to secure sites.
Mavundla said that at the Joyner Road site in Isipingo, everything had been removed from a pump station.
“They came prepared with hammers to knock it out and take what they wanted,” he said.
eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda admitted that both water and electricity infrastructure was being vandalised, but said it had gone beyond vandalism to become an orchestrated plan to damage the infrastructure.
“We are making decisions that do not sit well with people. The city infrastructure and its trucks are vulnerable to sabotage,” Kaunda said.
Daily News