Durban - Protesting residents of areas north of Durban, fed up after five days without water, ended a communication deadlock with eThekwini Municipality after staging a sit-on the the steps of the City Hall on Friday afternoon.
DA councillor Shontel de Boer, who led the protest, said the city’s head of water Ednick Msweli had promised the protesters the city would create a WhatsApp group. On it would be four councillors from affected areas, along with the head of the municipal manager’s office and the head of the mayor’s office and all city officials involved with the area’s water supply.
This would allow “a step by step update of what’s happening on the ground to communicate to residents”.
“It appears that there was some form of sabotage,” said De Boer, who understood from negotiations with the city that valves had been turned off. She said there was no certainty of when the water supply would return to normal because the city’s “teams are still walking the line”.
“A lot of the valves are in the bush,” she said.
The protest was prompted by De Boer having been refused access to the Virginia Pump Station for an oversight visit on Friday morning.
“While we were there, no city officials took my calls, from junior to senior officials to the mayor,” she said.
About 100 000 people had been affected by the “catastrophe”, said the party’s provincial chairperson Dean Macpherson.
The City said teams from its Water and Sanitation Unit were assessing the Northern Aqueduct Pipeline to ensure water supply was fully restored to all affected areas.
On Thursday, the City said reservoirs supplying uMhlanga and Durban North areas had “started filling up. However, due to low levels, the supply to all residents has not been restored as yet”. Tankers were supplying water and “our teams continue with their investigation and remedy work”.
The Independent on Saturday