BURLINGTON residents who have been struggling with overflowing sewers and backed up toilets for over a week have been reassured by the City that their complaints have been recognised as urgent.
This despite them having repeatedly reported the mater to the municipality with many promises given that the problem would be tended to, but no one arrived to fix the issue.
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“Out of frustration I decided to contact you,” said Muriel Mlobeli to the Queensburgh News when a reporter visited the property she shares with her brother and her extended family as well as others who rent flats on the same plot.
In a statement issued by eThekwini Municipality’s spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela on Tuesday afternoon, the City said there is a widespread problem of blocked manholes in many communities.
“Please note that the issue of blocking manholes continues to be a problem in the City, this is despite the speed that the City moves with to attend to such blockages,” said Mayisela.
The statement apportioned some blame to those living in the communities, including so-called ‘land invaders’ for the existing problem.
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“What is compounding our woes is that some members of the public continue to dispose of foreign objects into the system resulting in it to block. The City does receive reports of manhole blockages from time to time and its responds to them but within a short space of time we find ourselves having to go back to square one,” said Mayisela.
“We also have a serious concern of our residents who are invading land, who later on connect illegally to our system, with material, which is not compatible with the system, causing it to malfunction,” he added.
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“For us to be able to win the war against blocked manholes we need to work together unceasingly by heading all the calls made by the Municipality to residents to refrain from dumping foreign objects into the system.”
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