GLENMORE and Umbilo residents say they are still dealing with water issues, including frequent water outages without any notice and low water pressure. Umbilo resident Lorraine Fouquereaux says the water was shut off on Saturday, July 13, and although the water was restored the following week, there have been frequent water issues ever since. “Some homes in Umbilo have been without water since early Saturday morning. Water came on at 19:17 on Thursday, July 18.
However, it was off again when we woke up in the morning. From this week, although the pressure was low, we again have water, but we have been dealing with these issues for almost 10 days. This lack of consistent water supply is unacceptable.” Fouquereaux says she and other residents were not properly informed of the water tanker schedule.
“Even the sending of water tanks wasn’t done properly. We’d receive forwarded messages, with no date or time, advising where a water tank would be. This made it impossible to know if the information was relevant. We’d rush to the location only to find no tank or an empty one that had gone for a refill and wouldn’t be returning to our area. It’s harder for us in particular because in our wards, Ward 33 and Ward 101, we don’t have councillors. We’re still waiting for our councillors to be appointed.”
Also read: Community to expect water restrictions ahead of major shutdown
A close neighbour of Fouquereaux, Cyril Pillay, said the residents want more transparency and communication from the municipality. “We can understand that the municipality has released a statement saying that field investigations are underway to check for problems within the Central Region’s water distribution system and that those of us who are supplied by Wiggins Water Treatment Works will be affected. But I am on the eThekwini Municipality app, and although the notice is dated Friday, July 12, it only appeared on Tuesday, July 16.”
Pillay says the outages are inconvenient and only affect certain houses and roads. “My main gripe is that there are some of us who have water and others who don’t – some people have had water for the entire duration of ours being shut off. We are saying that ‘all for one and one for all’ should be applied.
“We don’t understand how some roads are affected, even just some houses, and others aren’t. It should be shared, and it should be shared equally, or we should be notified promptly when there will be ‘water shedding’ so we can prepare. These water shut-offs do not take into consideration the elderly in the area – some can’t walk to the tankers – and there are old age homes in the area and schools, and people have children. How are people meant to live like this?”
Also read: Refuse collection disrupted across several parts of eThekwini
Fouquereaux says the recent water woes she and her neighbours have been experiencing are part of a larger service delivery issue from the municipality.
“Their standard replies that lack substance, the lack of follow-up on reported issues, reference numbers being provided but problems not being addressed, unresponsiveness to emails, and residents feeling like they’re being ignored are all reasons that leave us residents with the impression that the eThekwini Municipality simply doesn’t care about the concerns of ratepayers.”
On your mind
Berea Mail spoke to a few residents from Umbilo/Glenmore about how the recent water outages have affected their daily lives. Many of the residents have the same issue, ‘lack of proper communication’, and voiced their frustrations about how the information about the recent water outages was spread to residents.
If the question is, ‘How would you like to be communicated with?’, the answer is that it would be helpful if we received notices on the light poles in advance so we can all stay informed and prepare ourselves accordingly. However, we understand that a lot of us have become accustomed to using technological means, and another suggestion would be for us to receive notices on the municipality app, but in a timely manner, so we can regularly stay informed.
I think that if the municipality was transparent and more open with us residents, we would be open to working with them hand-in-hand to make our communities better. But at this stage, we get most of our information from WhatsApp groups, and that means some people are informed while other people are not. We should all be informed about news relating to our communities. The municipality is not very honest with us, and it is frustrating when we are dealing with the issues on the ground.
We’ve had no water when many other homes, roads and areas have had water. When the water was initially shut off, mine was shut off on the Friday evening. We had absolutely no time to prepare – we just had to deal with the reality at 21:00 at night and try to prepare for the next day and following days as best we could. We’ve tried to contact the municipality, and no one has responded – there has been no communication, and that is unacceptable in my opinion.
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