WITH a drought having hit the province in the past few years, government has been urging communities to use water sparingly. But despite this water wastage continues unabated. What’s more the eThekwini Municipality is not attending to water leakages timeously.
That’s according to Prestondale resident Derek Krummeck who said he was disappointed in the City’s lack of urgency when it comes to addressing water wastage. Being a regular beach goer, Krummeck said he was at Bronze Beach in uMhlanga when he spotted a leaking tap in the men’s bathroom earlier this year.
“In May this year I noticed a leaking tap in the men’s toilets at Bronze Beach. I tried to tighten it but at its tightest, it continued running cold water,” said Krummeck.
He said he went on to ask the cleaners if they are aware of the leak. According to Krummeck they told him they had reported the matter to the relevant authorities a couple of times but nothing had been done. Krummeck said he left the beach hoping that by the next time he visited, the tap would have been fixed.
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“Initially the leak was just drops which is still a lot because it makes up hundreds of litres. When I went there recently, and this is now six months after I initially reported the leak, things had gotten worse.
“I have checked on it since and it has got progressively worse. It is now streaming out and can’t close any tighter,” he said.
“My questions are; who’s job is it to check for, and carry out maintenance on Umhlanga Beach? Why has it taken so long for the leak to be fixed? This is really a shocking waste of water. Surely once leaking municipal water is reported, anywhere, it should be repaired with urgency,” said Krummeck.
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After seeing that the City was not doing enough to resolve the matter, Krummeck sent his query to the Umhlanga Urban Improvement Precint (UIP).
The UIP’s Dewet Geldenhuys said,”We tried to fix the tap but it was not something the UIP could do so we forwarded the query to the Parks and Recreation department.”
The department’s supervisor Shaina Pillay said after receiving Dewet’s message the tap was fixed.
“We would like to apologise to all affected parties for not attending to the matter timeously. We can assure you that the tap has been fixed,” said Pillay.
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