Mayor Cyril Xaba says the City will soon unveil their plans to resolve Durban's water challenges. Picture: Thuli Dlamini / eThekwini Municipality
Image: Thuli Dlamini / eThekwini Municipality
Durban mayor Cyril Xaba has reiterated the City's commitment to addressing water challenges, adding that in two weeks’ time, they will table a detailed plan of action aimed at resolving this problem.
Xaba said the municipality has developed and tabled a water turn-around strategy, and in about two weeks, they will present an implementation plan.
He explained that the City is grappling with water challenges due to a string of problems, including intense migration to Durban and the deterioration of infrastructure.
He spoke to The Mercury on the sidelines of the launch of the Easter Holiday safety plan at Westown yesterday.
The City took members of the media to the outer-west area to show-case tourist attractions for those vis-iting Durban this Easter. Among the tourism gems were places in the Valley of a Thousand Hills.
Xaba said the City was on top of the water challenges with results expected soon.
“We have a challenge with the ageing infrastructure that we are now working to replace. We also have a serious challenge in that we have many people moving into the city that we have to provide services for. Where else have you seen more than 500 informal settlements surrounding a city? The issue is that we have to provide services to those informal settlements, which puts more strain on ageing infrastructure.
“Another issue is the problem of illegal connections; people are connecting themselves to the infrastructure, which means that we are now losing out on revenue for water and electricity,” he said.
The mayor said a lot of work is being done to ensure these problems are addressed, and furthermore, that the community has a consistent supply of water.
“We are buying our own water tankers; we will be purchasing about 100 water tankers, and we should have those by 2027.
We have already bought about 246 water tankers, which means we will soon have about 346 tankers. This is meant to boost internal capacity. There will always be scope for private service providers, but we need to develop internal capacity.
“We should also deploy technology to address issues like water levels in reservoirs and leak detection,” he said.
Speaking about leak detection, Xaba said: “The technology will be able to tell us that between this point and that point, the water pressure is fine; it drops at that point, which means the leak must be here.”
Xaba also warned those who are travelling to the city for the Easter holidays to be aware that there will be a strong law enforcement presence, with the Metro police and SAPS working alongside private security.
“We have a high (road) death rate because many people visit the province, but this is really giving us a bad name. We urge those who will be driving long distances to make sure they take rest breaks in between to ensure they are refreshed while driving.”