City declars war on water leaks

eTHEKWINI Municipality loses about 237 million litres a day due to illegal water connections and leaks.

This was revealed by eThekwini Mayor James Nxumalo, who was addressing residents during a day-long expedition to INK (Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu) where residents are most affected by a surge of illegal water connections and burst water pipes.

Nxumalo was accompanied by KwaZulu-Natal Premier Senzo Mchunu, the MEC for Co-operative Governance, Traditional Affairs Nomusa Dube-Ncube and members of the Executive Committee.

Nxumalo said that by reaching out to the community, he hoped residents will work together with government to address the issues of water shortages.

“We currently have people working very hard to install water meters in areas that do not have any so that we can fight against illegal connections,” he said.

Mchunu said the province was aware of the issues, and supported the various projects and educational initiatives such as “War On Leaks” which aimed at educating communities on water saving and to report water leaks.

“We recognise that water is a right for South Africans, we also recognise that there are many other issues, and in time we hope to address them all,” he said.

eThekwini Water and Sanitation Unit (EWS) has focused its attention on reducing the non-revenue water in the INK area as well as improving the levels of supply for communities.

The water supply system in the area has deteriorated and the contributing factors include:

•Illegal water connections. Statistically, non-paying consumers use much more water than paying customers and also repeatedly reconnect themselves after EWS has removed the illegal connection;

•There is rampant vandalism and theft of water infrastructure;

•The security of staff is a major concern. Many incidents have occurred when staff are sent out to remove illegal connections these include hijackings, vehicles being damaged, intimidation and robbery. One engineer was murdered in KwaMashu on 29 July 2014;

•Providing armed security guards is expensive and often guards are targeted;

•The areas have rapidly densified as thousands of people have migrated to these areas north of the City.

Nxumalo said numerous solutions have been implemented to address these problems.

“Owing to the extent and nature of the problem, addressing these issues in these areas will take considerable time and there is no ‘quick-fix’. Some improvements such as meter installations will be done once off but other interventions such as leak detection will have to be carried out repeatedly to stabilise the system,” he added.

The Department of Water and Sanitation recently confirmed funding of R2,7 million for all necessary technical interventions to ensure that water supply to the Greater Ntuzuma area is restored and that residents have a 24-hours daily supply. It is estimated that the Municipality will spend a further R7.9 million as part of the intervention.

Compliance by the community to ensure the sustainability and effectiveness of the implemented measures is pivotal and residents can play their part in doing the following:

•Protect Municipal staff and their agents working in their areas;

•Protect Municipal infrastructure;

•Refrain from making illegal water connections and actively report people who connect illegally;

•Report leaks;

•Repair any leaks at home and reduce water consumption;

•Make payments to the Municipality for services rendered.

The Municipality urges residents to continue reporting illegal water connections to the number 080 1313013.”

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