Ladysmith – The UThukela District Municipality says it is inching closer to solving the years-long water crisis that has plagued and nearly crippled key industrial towns like Ladysmith and Estcourt.
The IFP-led district municipality located in northern KwaZulu-Natal catering for water and sanitation needs for resort towns like Bergville, Winterton, Weenen and Colenso, says its water challenge is historic and while trying to resolve it on its own, it encountered several hurdles, hence it has sent an SOS to provincial and national government departments.
This was laid bare by the council led by mayor Inkosi Ntandoyenkosi Shabalala on Wednesday during an impromptu press conference following several water-related protests and outcry from the DA that a water project in Ezakheni was being deliberately sabotaged to enrich a certain connected company.
Shabalala outlined a litany of issues which he said led to the crisis, among them being ageing infrastructure which is unable to cope with the present demand, sabotage, and a wildcat strike by some employees who are aggrieved about their overtime pay and other allowances.
He said load shedding was also adding to their woes and they were looking at installing solar panels to ensure that their water systems were not affected.
“We were also affected by load shedding that is ravaging the entire country as it has a negative impact to supply water sustainably to our communities.
“It also has a destructing effect on our water infrastructure such that in every turn when electricity supply is restored, it results in pipe bursts and also damages our pumps in the process,” Shabalala said.
Further compounding their challenges, Shabalala said, was that they were sitting on a huge historic debt of R700 million and worse still, they have to urgently cough up R51m after several court judgments that did not go their way.
He said things have not been made easy by the fact that they were under administration and every decision to pay suppliers with the little they have, has to take the cumbersome process of being approved by the administrator who was overseeing their administrative affairs.
Despite all this, Shabalala said their crisis would be over after the Department of Water and Sanitation said it would give them money in April this year to resolve their water woes.
“Our people would eventually get water, we have just been told by Minister of Water and Sanitation Senzo Mchunu that there is money to be allocated to us for the water project.
“By the end of March, the minister would come here to announce how much would be given to us so that people can have water.
“It’s not going to be a little sum of money, it is going to be a lot of money so that we can quickly work on this matter,” Shabalala told the press conference.
Mchunu’s department could not immediately confirm the claims by Shabalala and his executive council.
Shabalala also used the press conference to state their side of the story regarding the R45m “missing” water pumps that have plunged the township of Ezakheni into a water crisis.
The claim was made by their coalition partner, the DA, which even called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to unleash the Special Investigating Unit to probe the matter
Moreover, the DA said if the matter was not addressed, it would consider pulling out of the coalition.
However, Shabalala said the damaged pumps were in their possession and they have not gone missing as previously alleged.
“Let me touch on the issue of pumps because it was a topical issue, the pumps are there, we know where they are and we can take you there.
“The pumps are not working and our plan B was to replace them and Cogta (Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs) even gave us R15m to replace them so that people can get water instead of enriching a certain company with a tender.”
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