Plans in place to address city’s water supply
During a National Water Week campaign, Msunduzi’s Deputy Mayor, Mxolisi Mkhize, urged the community to use water responsibly and spoke about the city’s plans to address the ongoing issues residents are facing regarding water supply.
“During National Water Week, we allow ourselves time to reflect on the importance of this basic and scarce human need. Within our municipality, we are constantly reminded of how the availability of water is critical to our mandate of providing potable water that is safe, reliable and regulated. It also highlights the centrality of water as a resource, in the wellbeing of both the environment and people.
To address this, the deputy mayor confirmed a new reservoir would be built near Encwadi in the next financial year. “Msunduzi Municipality is also a part of the project that will be building a dam. It will be in the Umkomaas area and service Ethekwini Municipality, which means the water that has been going to Durban from Midmar Dam will be used for the city. We want to assure investors that there is water, and we have a plan to address these challenges,” said Mxolisi.
Addressing the many water outages the city has been experiencing recently, Msunduzi Municipality manager for water and sanitation Brendan Siverpersad said the department is working on dealing with the challenges, which include ageing infrastructure and possible issues of tampering, which is being investigated.
“Essentially, we know where the high leaking issues are, along with high pressure water. We have a programme that will start in four weeks, just past our adjustment budget. We will be looking at getting the contractors to start working and looking for these leaks. Sometimes we find that the loss is from non visible leaks. At times, in a non-commercial area at night, if we find that there is an abnormal amount of water being used, then it is a problem. They will also be looking at daytime leaks and water meters to ensure accuracy to the residents. It is a grant funded project. It comes from council funding, which comes from the adjustment budget. We do have a five year plan in place. We need around R745 million to replace the asbestos cement pipes, and we will be rolling out this programme once it is approved as part of the budget. This will be in areas where there are high burst frequencies,” he explained.