Msunduzi councillor Strachan writes to rights body over water crisis

Ward 26 councillor in the Msunduzi Municipality Ross Strachan has escalated the water crisis matter in parts of Msunduzi to the Human Rights Commission, with hopes of urgent intervention.

This, after the community of Old Howick Road and surroundings had been without water for more than a week.

In South Africa, as in most parts of the world, access to safe water is a fundamental human need and a basic human right.

In his letter of complaint to the commission, Strachan said the municipality had failed to address the issue and provide sufficient communication, and it lacked the capacity to resolve the crisis.

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Strachan said residents who were bound to their homes due to chronic or terminal illnesses had become increasingly desperate for the issue to be resolved.

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Despite many attempts, escalations through senior management of the municipality and continual efforts to establish the way forward had been unsuccessful.
He said desperate residents have been forced to mobilise and investigate themselves by walking throughout the community in treacherous conditions to locate the problem.

The crisis was now affecting the rest of the city in the fact that other reservoirs are also being impacted, causing communities to have no access to basic water.
After areas in Clarendon, Prestbury, Boughton as well as Tanner Road, Upper Wembley and surroundings had no electricity, Strachan said he suspected there was a massive problem that was not being communicated.

Infrastructure and substations were still left exposed to the elements, also subjecting residents to continued and prolonged outages almost daily throughout the city. The Democratic Alliance will be calling an urgent meeting with the ministerial representative, Martin Sithole, to request urgent steps be taken.
Msunduzi Municipality said on Saturday that the city was experiencing a disruption in water supply affecting various areas.

We are jointly working with Umgeni Water to ascertain the exact location of the problem. Due to the inclement weather conditions, the location of burst pipes has been difficult to determine.
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Msunduzi spokesperson Ntobeko Mkhize said they were in further discussions and on the ground checking for supply problems.

We sincerely regret these unanticipated problems in the supply of potable water during this period, and we are ensuring that this is a priority.
As of Sunday, more electricity faults had been reported and acknowledged by the city.

Msunduzi said they were attending to the major faults while individual or single complaints were attended to as and when logged via the call centre or faults office.

They urged residents to also note that bad weather affects infrastructure.