eThekwini mayor spells out plans to fix ongoing water issues plaguing communities

eThekwini Mayor, Cyril Xaba, says the fact that most of the City's regions have no water is due to ageing infrastructure, water demand exceeding supply due to population growth, theft and vandalism.

Providing an update on water outages and other service delivery issues at a briefing at the weekend, Xaba said while water supply has been relatively stable, there are areas undergoing water rationing.

"For instance, in the central region, the supply was sitting at 100% supply, 95% in the inner-west, 90% in the north and southern regions as well as 85% in the outer west," Xaba said.

Xaba says the municipality is implementing four projects to mitigate these challenges.

Four projects:

• Xaba explained that a R1.2 billion project to repair and upgrade the Southern Aqueduct will improve water supply to uMlazi, Folweni, Chatsworth and Adams Mission. He said part of the pipeline upgrade will be commissioned in December, and that this is a two-year project.

• A new Northern Aqueduct will be commissioned to improve water supply to Phoenix, Inanda, Ntuzuma and oThongathi in the north.

"We were supposed to commission this new pipeline by the end of August. However, we have decided to delay this process until we overcome the current challenge of reduced water volumes," the mayor said.

• Regarding water challenges in KwaXimba, Xulu said the City is working with Umngeni/uThukela Water, and so far a two-megalitre package water plant was installed in April.

He added that by June next year, this will increase to five-megalitres.

• The fourth project, in Ntuzuma, will see the upgrading of a pump station to improve water supply in Inanda and KwaMashu, and this project is expected to be wrapped up by November 2024.

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