Umkhanyakude – Minister of Water and Sanitation Senzo Mchunu has announced that they have started an intervention across KwaZulu-Natal after they realised that all district municipalities and eThekwini metro are struggling to adequately supply water to people and businesses.
Mchunu says their urgent interventions will help these municipalities to meet the demand as required.
He was speaking to the media on the sidelines of the Umkhanyakude water imbizo held at Nhlwathi village, Hlabisa, in northern KZN on Thursday.
The imbizo was held to give an update regarding the twin Umkhanyakude and Zululand water projects that are being implemented using water drawn from the Jozini Dam.
Mchunu told the community that their water woes would soon be over as a team of experts from his department and the Mhlathuze Water board were increasing the pipeline capacity from Jozini to their area.
He said the challenge with the 2011 joint project between Zululand and Umkhanyakude was that it was very low in capacity and they were now working on correcting that.
The department has also taken total control of the project together with the Mhlathuze Water board after it appeared that political differences between the IFP-run Zululand District Municipality and ANC-run Umkhanyakude District were slowing down the much-needed project.
Mchunu then spoke about water challenges across the province, saying they have found that all 11 districts of the province have challenges, hence they have intervened.
He said even the eThekwini metro was having challenges, hence the recent section 154 intervention by the provincial and national government.
“We acknowledge that there is an issue of water, I don’t want to call it a crisis.
“The municipalities, the district municipalities which are water services authorities, including the (eThekwini) metro, they are able to supply water, but not in line with the demand.
“In other words, we have a situation in all of them where the demand is very high and the supply is lower than the demand,” Mchunu said.
According to Mchunu, all district municipalities were not producing enough water to meet their current demand and they were intervening to help them.
Mchunu also revealed that they have pumped R150 million into the Ugu District Municipality in the south of the province to help the district to resolve its decade-long water crisis that has crippled resort towns like Margate and Port Shepstone.
However, Mchunu said there were challenges as there was no progress even though there was money.
Mchunu said that as a result, to avoid a situation like that of Giyani where money was spent without any results, they have decided to intervene and ensure that the crisis is resolved.
“We are facing a situation where that municipality, in terms of implementation of our intervention, is hitting the wall, we have concluded that it is hitting the wall.
“We have instructed the DG (director-general) to engage (the Treasury) and say there needs to be a different plan now and a different implementing agent because it’s clear that there is no capacity down there.
“It is clear that we will soon run into a crisis that is comparable to Giyani where you have money, you are seen to be using money, but you not making progress,” Mchunu said.
Current Affairs