Thirty-eight days without water
After more than a month without water, the residents at an apartment building on Mazisi Kunene Road are at their wit's end and are appealing to the municipality to assist them with this crisis.
BEREA MAIL visited Mazisi Kunene Road two weeks after reporting that Berea residents living at a small apartment building called Mount Glen, on Mazisi Kunene Road, have been without water for nearly a month. Charles de Ravel, who lives at one of the four apartments in the building, says the water has now been shut off for 38 days, and the residents have been incessantly reaching out to the eThekwini Municipality since early February.
“We have had no response at all from Siboniso Sibisi, our ward councillor, despite various emails, WhatsApps, etc. Also, there has been no response from two councillors outside our ward to whom we appealed in desperation. We have had no response at all from eThekwini Water. The complaint was logged on February 2. I call them daily but have not been able to get through,” said De Ravel.
De Ravel says the residents have used their own money to hire plumbers to assess the building’s water issue.
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“We have consulted two plumbers, both of whom have told us the on/off valve is broken. As a result, they cannot switch off the main water supply in order to fix our vandalised tap. Furthermore, they pointed out that Durban Corporation property can only be fixed by the municipality. The risk is that if they tamper with a broken valve, it could lead to burst mains with huge loss of water similar to the one on Marist Road last week.”
On Friday, February 29, litres of water were pouring into Mazisi Kunene Road after a water pipe burst on Marist Road. De Ravel says the issue was resolved in a matter of hours. “That leakage ran for hours before someone was sent to fix it, which angers me – in a city with major water shortages, such a waste of water under any circumstances is unacceptable.”
De Ravel, who rushed to the site of the water leakage on Friday to fill buckets with water to flush his toilet, says he feels like his human rights are being infringed upon.
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“If I finally did succeed in getting through to eThekwini Water, I would remind them that the denial of water services is a human rights issue. We have to walk miles to fetch water or pay for it to be delivered. We have to walk miles – in my case, because I don’t have a car – or get lifts to friends for bathing. We have to pay for laundry services instead of doing our own laundry. Everything takes ages and involves inconvenience to friends, neighbours and ourselves. No one expects a quick fix, but 38 days without a response from anyone beggars belief. There was a glimmer of hope when I personally alerted the municipality workers of our plight, and I saw them on Friday in Marist Road, but that was extinguished the next day with the strike of municipality workers. It seems there is no end in sight.”
The eThekwini Municipality was not available for comment at the time of writing this article.
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