Parliament summons Ugu officials to explain water crisis on KZN south coast

The managers of the Ugu district municipality have been summoned by the portfolio committee on co-operative governance to explain the ongoing water crisis on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast.

In a letter to the mayor, the committee's chairperson, Faith Muthambi, said residents had called on the parliamentary committee to investigate ongoing water woes in the area.

"On the backdrop of this petition, the committee would like to invite the district municipality to a meeting at parliament on Friday to brief the committee on the petition," she said.

Muthambi summoned the mayor, municipal manager, chief financial officer and heads of water, treasury and technical services in the district.

Municipal spokesman France Zama told TimesLIVE  a delegation would appear before the portfolio committee on Friday.

Last month a KwaZulu-Natal family watched helplessly while their business premises burned to ground because there was no water in Margate and surrounding areas to douse the flames.

When large tankers arrived to extinguish the blaze at Plastic Recycling in Margate during the early hours of February 1, the Pienaars were hopeful that at least 50% of their business would be saved.

However, one tanker broke down on the way to the fire and the other ran out of water.

"When the working tanker was empty they went to refill it but there was no water in Margate to do so. They drove to Oslo Beach, to Marburg and Port Shepstone but there was no water anywhere. This is because of ongoing service delivery failure by Ugu. When we found out that Ugu could not supply us with water, we arranged with a farmer to pump water from his dam, but the fire brigade did not have a pump."

"At this point the fire was completely out of control and we were left to stand and watch our business burn to the ground," said Hester Pienaar.

The region has been plagued by water issues as its pipeline has been repeatedly "held hostage" and sabotaged.

Residents have resorted to using bottled water, ferrying water from as far as Durban back home or even moving out of the area as the water shortage escalates.

Two years ago, the region was declared a disaster area when hospitals‚ schools‚ clinics and homes had no water.

Truck drivers carrying water to communities were intimidated and municipal water tanks were stolen.

In the past two weeks, seven municipal vehicles have been torched.

The municipality believes a labour dispute is behind its water problems.

"This is as a result of the recent prolonged labour unrest, which eventually culminated in around 121 workers being dismissed from the municipality. This has been followed by a spate of sabotage incidents to municipal infrastructure which has crippled our water network systems.

"The situation is escalating daily. This has impeded our human and systems ability to conduct our operations normally, which ultimately resulted in prolonged disruption of supply across the district," said Zama.

He said repairs to the pipeline could not always be done as technicians were often intimidated.

"We are providing water relief through tankers to the affected areas while we work on repairing the damage caused by vandalism. Sometimes it becomes difficult for our technicians to conduct repairs because they are threatened and intimidated. We have, however, formed a working partnership with law enforcement agencies to help in dealing with the criminal elements."

Affected residents believe the municipality should be doing more to address the water shortage. About 200 residents marched to the municipal offices two weeks ago to demand that authorities #StopTheRot.

"There are areas that have not had water for seven months. There are elderly folk living alone, not linked to social media, who have found themselves without water and with no means to get to water. Last year we learnt about a couple, both in their 80s, via a distraught family member, that they could not wash and had no drinking water. One just has to scroll through pages on social media to get an idea of the anger and frustration felt by all communities," said march organiser Phillip Lennon.

The SA Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu) said if the municipality was confident disgruntled workers were behind the "so-called sabotage", it should lay criminal charges.

"The municipality must go to the police and people must be arrested. Why hasn’t that happened yet?" said provincial secretary Jaycee Ncanana.