Nearly two thirds of drinking water supplied by the iLembe District Municipality goes straight down the drain.
iLembe lost about 18 million kilolitres of water worth R187 million during the 2019/20 financial year.
In the recent annual report on water losses, Democratic Alliance (DA) caucus leader MS Sing said the 60% loss was far more than the national average of 40% wastage.
The municipality’s core function is to supply water and sanitation services to 4 municipalities – KwaDukuza, Ndwedwe, Maphumulo and Mandeni – but many residents are continually without water.
Some residents have been without water for up to 3 weeks.
One KwaDukuza resident told the Courier how he and his wife endured great hardship over the festive season after their taps ran dry – and no one could tell them why. This while self isolating after testing positive for Covid-19.
George van Rensburg and his wife have been renting a house at Lot 16 in KwaDukuza for the past 3 years. The area contains a number of informal settlements, RDP houses, and informal backyard dwellers.
The couple tested positive for the virus on New Year’s Eve.
The water stopped around the same time and they were forced to self-isolate with no running water or easy access to water.
“We were not able to wash our bed linen, bath or even flush the toilet for more than 2 weeks,” said Van Rensburg.
He claimed water tankers were infrequent and were not supplied to all affected areas.
The couple relied on the goodwill of a neighbouring farmer almost a kilometre away to supply them with water. The retired train driver made the journey along the dirt road a couple of times a day, while battling with the symptoms of the coronavirus.
“When our water is restricted, which happens frequently, the water pressure goes down to a trickle, which means that one can wash hands with soap and rinse with the trickle. We can live without electricity – we have candles and lamps – but water is essential.
“Despite numerous calls to the authorities, our water only came back recently, but the water pressure was so low, it trickled out for a few days before it stopped again,” said Van Rensberg.
Underspending on repairs and battling to maintain crucial infrastructure resulted in the district municipality being flagged by the Auditor General at the end of the third quarter of the 2019/20 financial year that ended on March 31, 2020.”
For municipalities supplying water and electricity, the consequence of low expenditure on repairs and maintenance is evident in their reported annual electricity and water losses,” said KZN MEC for Finance Ravi Pillay.
iLembe was one of 4 districts that reported the lowest spend on repairs and maintenance (48.8%).
Rishi Pooran of the Glenhills and District Civic Association, and a resident for 30 years, said marginalised communities struggled daily to get access to enough water while areas such as Stanger Manor, Lot 16, Doesburg, Warrenton, High Ridge, Lindelani and Shakaville had regular water cuts.
Most of these areas rely on pumps to receive their water.
Pooran blamed the crisis on a shortage of skilled staff and a lack of capacity to deal with emergency situations.
“We have to ask why do we have so many water leaks and the obvious answer is the municipality has let our infrastructure fall into such a state of disrepair that it is now coming back to haunt us,” he said.
The North Coast Courier visited Glenhills and witnessed evidence of neglected infrastructure, broken sewage pipes and numerous water leaks that, according to residents, have not been attended to despite having been reported.
In Mercury Lane in Glenhills, a water leak was gushing from under the main electrical transformer box supplying electricity to the entire neighbourhood.
Residents said the water has been flowing underneath the box for more than a month and, despite numerous calls to the call centre, nobody had turned up to fix it.
A blown transformer box costs more than R1 million to repair.
Glenhills resident Prinnal Naidoo said the municipality took 3 months to repair a water leak outside her house, which caused significant damage to her driveway and mold to form on her garage wall.
“If there is a broken pipe it should be fixed right away,” she said.
Residents said the water supply system had deteriorated significantly over the past few years despite ballooning water tariffs.
Prem Maharaj of the Stanger-based Human Rights Association said he knew a family who had not had a drop of water to their home for more than a year.”
“Our water supply is not secure. Millions of kilolitres of water are lost through leaks and residents continuously complain about sewer overflows and the stench,” said Maharaj.
iLembe District Municipality water services manager for KwaDukuza, Elias Bhengu said the problems were caused by aging infrastructure and power interruptions.
“The current infrastructure is old and has plenty of leaks. The power supply infrastructure at the balancing pump station is connected via the rural supply grid, which is prone to breakdowns especially during inclement weather.”
Bhengu said they were busy replacing 5km of old pipelines (around R3m) and trying to find a solution to stabilise power supply to pump stations.
DA caucus leader, MS Sing said iLembe municipality needed more funding from central government for infrastructure development.
“Out of the 4 municipalities under iLembe district, KDM is the main revenue generator as the other 3 local municipalities are mainly rural areas and very little revenue is collected, which puts a strain on the sustainability of iLembe.”
Sing said although residents deserved better service, he advised people to install water storage tanks as he did not foresee the problem improving soon.
