Durban residents fume over water outage linked to municipality labour dispute

Durban residents are fuming about a water outage that affected large parts of the city related to an eThekwini municipality labour dispute that has disrupted services.

This comes as residents in several areas are also faced with a power outage, which the municipality said its technicians are working to restore.

On Sunday night the municipality issued a statement informing residents water and sanitation services “are disrupted because of an ongoing labour issue”.

“The municipality is dealing with the issue and hopes to have it resolved as soon as possible,” it said.

It is understood the labour issue relates to overtime pay.

Sakhile Mngadi, ward councillor for Glenwood, Umbilo and Bulwer, told TimesLIVE on Monday the areas have been without water for 41 hours.

“I suspect it is related to the labour dispute. I think there aren’t officials who are actively on-site fixing things.

“There are instances where the pressure is low and it goes again. This has been happening for the past 41 hours.

“On the weekend we were told no staff were working because they had been refused overtime pay.

“It is Monday and I’m hoping people are on the roads fixing problems. The city has not communicated what the issue is. No one is coming forth to say things are broken and how long it will take to fix.

“Everything is happening under a veil of secrecy. This is worrying because I want to report back to the community,” said Mngadi.

Parts of Phoenix, north of Durban, have also been hit by the water outage.

A resident who did not want to named said many are fuming.

“Dry taps coupled with load-shedding made it a very frustrating 24-hours for us in Eastbury. The water went off at around 8am yesterday and only came back last night. The supply stopped again this morning.

“We are angry this is a result of a strike. Water cuts are frequent in our area due to the lack of maintenance of  infrastructure and now we hear it is because of striking workers. There must be another way to find a solution. Why are workers punishing residents?

“We have bottles, buckets and pots filled with stored water from tankers that have been coming to the area. Again, we have anxiety and stress due to service delivery issues. It is too much,” she said.

The city’s notice about the latest water woes on its Facebook page drew widespread anger.

One resident said: “Three years with water problems in Shallcross and now the past two days. No feedback on any reporting line and we must suffer because you can't get your house in order. This is highly irritating.

“The municipality has let down the community umpteen times. How long must we have a water problem? We’re the only place that will have so much rain and warnings of flooding but no water.”

Another said: “There was a notice about the water being off during the week because of maintenance work at Wiggins waterworks, but it never went off. Instead, today we’ve had low water pressure all day. Our geyser won’t fill so we’ve had to turn it off. This, on top of load-shedding.”

TimesLIVE

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