Reasons behind eThekwini infrastructure problems

IN YOUR April 26 issue, Mr Moodley paints a sad picture of the demise of a “once-thriving municipality’’.

I agree with his remarks entirely; however, I have tried to examine the reason for this slide in the area of infrastructure provision, maintenance and operations.

The poor performance of the municipality in these areas is illustrated by events during the recent floods as well as the atrocious performance in getting the “GO!Durban” BRT system up and running.

In seeking an answer to the current poor state of affairs, I examined cities which have sound performance in the areas mentioned.

Essentially my conclusion is that these cities have one thing in common – a sufficient number of professionally qualified engineers in their employ and an institutional structure which allows them to perform their function free of political interference.

Compare this with the City of eThekwini, where I am informed that by far the majority of senior engineering employees in the ETA, the Water and Sanitation branch, the Electricity branch and the Civil Engineering cluster are not professionally qualified in terms of Government Regulations for the Identification of Engineering Work (Government Gazette number 44 333 of March 26, 2021).

To me this is akin to having a nurse, no matter how good he or she is, managing a heart replacement procedure in place of a professionally registered medical specialist.

Institutionally there are also problems.

Successful cities, both in the past and present, have all the above activities, including the town-planning function, falling under the control of a competent single professional city engineer, at the same level as the town clerk and city treasurer, and answerable to the city council only.

Some years back during its successful period Durban had this structure – nowadays there are a variety of independent “silos”, or clusters all answerable to different committees. You only have to look at the problems of repairing the pavements when electricity cables, for example are dug up and removed.

Instead of the repairs taking a day or so to be attended to, the whole matter drags on for months, with each person saying it is the responsibility of some other person, or weeds growing in the gutters of municipal buildings, and many, many other examples of poor maintenance.

Thirdly there is the matter of political interference by councillors and suchlike. I have heard reports of local councillors becoming involved in technical design and construction matters expressing preference for a particular approach which would gain favour with his or her electorate, or for whatever other reason.

Some of the more competent city engineers I have come across during my career would have an apoplectic outburst if this occurred on their watch. Nowadays it appears to be a common occurrence.

So if eThekwini wishes to have effective and well-managed infrastructure to meet all climatic and other extremes, I suggest that the council consider some of the points I mention above – if they do not, I hope they, the councillors, are fast approaching their “sell-by” date.

Hillcrest