ETHEKWINI Municipality continues with the roll-out of water provision and ablution facilities to identified informal settlements and schools in the City.
A report tabled by the executive committee on 20 June, outlined the request to increase the value of the contracts in place for phase three of the project for the Provision of Water and Sanitation Services to human settlements and provision of water and sanitation to schools in eThekwini.
This increase will allow for the construction of more than 500 ablution facilities.
The Water and Sanitation Unit has been tasked with the work which forms an integral part of the Interim Services Programme.
There are another 550 informal settlements identified for the erection of community ablution blocks.
The report said this project was initiated to address the sanitation provision imbalances within eThekwini; in line with the NDP’s vision of access to hygienic sanitation to all.
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To meet the delivery targets additional funding is needed as the current budget can only pay for about 300 facilities. The delivery of ablution facilities needs to be accelerated due to the rapid increase in informal settlements.
Phase three of the programme took one and a half financial years to complete from 2015/16 and the first half of 2016/17. With the approval of the report, the contracts will be implemented over the remaining half of the current financial year and the next two financial years namely 2017/18 and 2018/19.
The current funding sources for the programme include: Funding from the Department of Education for the schools project, Urban Settlement Development Infrastructure Grant, Infrastructure Development ORIO Grant (A Dutch grant worth R180 million with the requirement that 400 sites be constructed) and, savings allocated from other projects.
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