There's water in KZN but it's not reaching the taps, say disgruntled community members

The water crisis in the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal is not due to water scarcity but lack of deliveries to households.

That emerged on Tuesday during the water and sanitation dialogue between  government officials and residents in the Ugu district municipality. The discussions were happening as part of the National Council of Provinces’ “Taking Parliament to The People” campaign in Port Shepstone.

Little was mentioned about problems with sanitation as residents from different local municipalities mainly complained about the lack of clean water.

Linda Mtshali said in Ezinqoleni, Port Shepstone, their problem seems to be getting water to their households from the nearby reservoirs.

“In Ezinqoleni we don’t have a shortage of water, the problem is the supply. We have water in the reservoir but it is not delivered to us though the infrastructure is there. That problem started way back, over five years ago, but it became apparent after some workers from Ugu district municipality were laid off,” he said.

Zandile Ndovela from Esigazane said they had not received water since 2012, long before the April floods. She said that the only time taps were open for them was about the local government elections.

“I’m saying that because a day before last year’s local government elections we got water from the taps and for the next two days. On the third day it stopped about 10am and our taps have been dry since. What we’ve figured out is that it’s not a case of shortage of water, the problem is getting it to communities,” she said.

Noxolo Makha from Margate said Rey Nkonyeni local municipality was one of the municipalities known to be able to generate revenue through payment of rates, yet the government was not doing its part of providing services that they pay for. She said the lack of clean water was  affecting other human rights too.

“It’s been over two years. When you take away our right to water you affect other spheres like healthcare and human dignity. I once saw someone that I know hiding from me on the street because they had a 20-litre bucket that they were trying to throw away. They could not flush their toilets so they were using a bucket,” she said.

Residents pleaded for the supply of water tankers in the short term and creation of boreholes in the short-to-medium term.

In the long term, they recommended that the government invests in educating and promoting water supply related studies in higher education.

“Also when I look at what is being done to improve our water situation, I don’t see a push for courses that promote water cleaning and water treatment plants, so I’d like our government to focus on that to improve our water situation,” said Makha.

John Robins suggested that the government sends a team to go and study how the Romans managed to keep their water systems working for 400 years and come back to impart that knowledge.

“Send very experienced people: engineers, land surveyors with a capable team overseas and come back and show us how to save water. We can learn so much from the Romans. Nothing else seems to be working well in the country. No matter how hard we fix, it keeps breaking. So we have to go out and learn more,” she said.

Ugu district mayor Phumlile Mthiyane said a project for boreholes worth R20m  was under way and had already started showing results in some wards.

She said that they had previously received R14m  from Cogta to help with water supply but had to pay all of it to Eskom to help pump water from the Eastern Cape.

Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube said water supply in the district was sometimes interrupted by protests, burst pipes, leaks, vandalism, illegal connections, low pressure, pump failures and load-shedding among other things.

She said there was also a water war room which convenes daily to respond to water challenges in the district.

“The war room has put a turnaround plan in place which includes replacing old pipelines and equipment. Some areas are complete and some are budgeted in the next financial year. There is insufficient funding available to attend to all areas simultaneously,” she added.

She said there were “planned major bulk projects” to address water challenges in places including KwaLembe, Vulamehlo Cross-Border and Harding-Weza with a total anticipated budget of R2.7bn. 

“The war room has identified a further two projects which still need the full engineering spectrum and legal and regulatory processes to be compiled for RBIG funding applications.  These are Cwabeni Dam Bulk Infrastructure, including Umzimkhulu Bulk Augmentation (± R2.4bn) and Umtamvuna Bulk Infrastructure (± R1.2bn),” she said.

Water and sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu noted that almost all residents raised the issue of water but not sanitation, and the three most affected municipalities were Umzumbe, Harding and Rey Nkonyeni local municipalities.

He said Cogta minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma had pledged to help with a team who will work with his department full time to find and implement solutions.

From his department, Mchunu said they would grant at least R150m to the Ugu district municipality to find long-term solutions.

“After we have appointed and trained a team, our war room, to implement our solutions we will provide at least R150m, which we think will be enough to do this,” he said

To ensure the money is spent efficiently, Mchunu said they will only release the funds once their war room has provided a deliberate plan of how and where it will be used.

He also vowed that none of the money would be used to pay for water tankers but for longer-term solutions such as water pipes, boreholes and the like.

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