Frustration for businesses and govt departments as taps remain dry for days

Parts of the Pietermaritzburg CBD have been without water since Monday, which has severely affected businesses and state departments.

Ward 27 councillor Daniel Kemp said it was unclear what had caused the water outage that affected Peter Kerchoff Jabu Ndlovu, Langalibalele and Chief Albert Luthuli streets.

Kemp said the leak detection teams from Msunduzi Municipality scanned the city, but it was difficult to accurately detect faults since there were no reports of burst pipes.

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He said he requested tankers from the municipality but could not get any since there’s only six operating.

“It’s concerning and a complete disregard for affected residents and businesses. The fact that we have no capacity even to provide tankers to residents is due to other areas also being affected.

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Contingencies were not in place to ensure some form of continuity was established. I’ve had businesses, restaurants close their doors due to the outage with no concrete status of what’s actually going on

He said the possibility of this being a deliberate attempt to deprive businesses of water can’t be ruled out due to the extent of the outage.

He added it took longer for the municipality to address this issue due to the aging infrastructure.

On Thursday, Kemp said water was restored to only parts of the CBD. However, the water pressure is now very low there.

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He said even government departments and some of the municipal building were affected.

Frustrated business owners said they had to close their businesses this week while some sent employees home because they couldn’t operate without water.

A restaurant owner located on Railway Street, Prince Dlamini, said hygiene was vital for his Seodla Estation restaurant and he has been losing money since he closed on Monday.

“We have a water tank so over the weekend we were able to operate. No one knows what the issue is since the municipality had not been giving us any updates.”

I had to send customers away, which was painful because my business can’t survive without making money. Four days is enough to cripple my business

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A resident, who asked not to be named, said she is disappointed at the state of the magistrate’s court on Thursday.

She said it was dirty and had a terrible smell. Kemp said the court also had no water. A court official said it was unhygienic and inhumane to work, especially for women.

The official said the stench was unbearable and members of the public moved benches — put outside the toilets to prevent people from entering — to use the toilets. Msunduzi Municipality spokesperson Ntobeko Mkhize said there was a burst water pipe at the Chatterton circle, affecting the major feeder of the CBD areas on Sunday night.

“The teams swiftly attended to the repairs and water supply was restored in the early hours of Monday. “However, parts of the CBD were reportedly still struggling with a prolonged low water pressure and others a supply outage.

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“Teams are on the ground undertaking tracing to locate the burst. Once it has been located, appropriate repairs will be carried out immediately.

“Specialised leak detection equipment is being utilised. The members of the public are assured that teams are hard at work and will get to the bottom of this challenge,” said Mkhize.