eThekwini mayor proud of progress made since April 2021 floods

The eThekwini municipality is proud of its progress in responding to the infrastructure damage caused by the 2022 April floods despite working with limited resources.

That was revealed by mayor Mxolisi Kaunda in a media briefing in Umlazi Mega City, south of Durban, on Monday, where the city’s progress in repairing the infrastructure was assessed.

More than 450 people in KZN lost their lives, with more than 400 of them from eThekwini, while 76 people who went missing during the floods are yet to be found.

Kaunda said they were sad that there were still families who were yet to find closure since some of their relatives were still missing.

On the progress in fixing infrastructure, Kaunda commended the city for managing to reprioritise about R500m  to respond to challenges while waiting for more funds from the government.

“When the floods happen, the allocation from national government doesn't come immediately so we had to prioritise projects and reprioritise budgets to make sure we started doing something with the limited resources that we had. We had to hit the ground running with fixing the roads and bridges,” he said.

He said the government came into the party only six months later, with funds that they also had to reprioritise. Kaunda but commended the combined efforts of all spheres of government for the collaboration so far.

“It is only after six months that we received R185m from government which we also reprioritised to infrastructure, roads and engineering as well as water and sanitation. We have done more than 600 roads and bridges in the city with the R500m and we are proud of that. Now that we have confirmed that R1.5bn  has been received, we will continue,” he said.

As part of their assessment of the progress, Kaunda, along with municipal chairs of different committees in the city visited some areas which were badly damaged.

They visited Bellamont Road in Umdloti which was hit by mudslides but has since been backfilled. The stormwater drainage system in the area has been fixed.

Kaunda said damage to road infrastructure had been estimated at R5.6bn as more than 60% of the communities in the city were inaccessible by transport.

“Through the budget reprioritisation process and the allocation of the first tranche of the flood relief funds, we have undertaken 600 projects which include rehabilitation and regravelling of access roads that fall under our jurisdiction in rural and township communities, and made great progress in constructing two bridges in ward 100, Engonyameni,” he said.

“The municipality has allocated funding for flood mitigation measures in the Durban South Basin. These include the repair of the existing Umlazi Canal, Prospecton Road canal upgrade and maintenance of eziMbokodweni and Isipingo River diversion berms as well as rebuilding of power substations in the area to improve electricity supply to industries.”

They handed over a three-bedroom house to 76-year old Gogo Ndawonde and her family in Umlazi’s U-section. It is one of 60 houses built as part of “storm disaster houses” programme.

“We are continuing to build storm disaster houses for families who have sites that are located in safer places. To date, we have been able to build more than 60 storm disaster houses for flood victims,” he said.

He reiterated that all 8,000 families who were placed in the 120 mass care centres around the city had since been moved to safer, more family friendly temporary accommodation.

“We are also accelerating a programme of building permanent houses for them. We would love it if it could be earlier but we aim finish all of them by the end of 2024. As we speak, the city is preparing eight sites for this purpose,” he said.

On sewer infrastructure, Kaunda said repairs of sewer lines in Peace Palm and Reitview in Phoenix were progressing well and had stopped sewer leakages which contaminated the Ohlange River. The repairs for a temporary sewer line along the Umlazi canal has helped to prevent the contamination of the Umlazi River and other beaches in the south of Durban.

“The fact that today out of 23 beaches, 19 are open and safe for bathing, speaks volumes about the strides we have made to repair our sanitation infrastructure. This can be attributed to the repairs we have completed in our pump stations along the coastal lines,” Kaunda said.

He said great progress has also been made in water and sanitation. He said water supply has improved from below 40% in all regions in the city to between 75% and 95%.

“In collaboration with Umgeni Water, we are finalising plans to upgrade the southern aqueduct which, when completed, will provide these areas with a reliable supply of water at a cost of R900m,” he said. “The city has also completed 11 flood-related water projects in areas such as Hillcrest, Dassenhoek, Reservoir Hills, Amanzimtoti, Waybank and Chatsworth at a cost of R64m.”

Kaunda said electricity supply had been restored to all areas in the city, with all 100 that were affected by the floods now working.

While Kaunda conceded that they had not been able to complete all the repairs to infrastructure, largely because of limited funding, they were on the right track.

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