Durban - Tourism bodies say the extended water outage in areas north of Durban – including uMhlanga, La Lucia and Durban North suburbs – coupled with other matters, had dealt a fatal blow to the industry over the long weekend.

More than 100 000 residents are said to be affected.

City officials and councillors visited the area yesterday to address residents. They said three main reservoirs in uMhlanga were still empty or critically low. One reservoir in uMhlanga was almost full. As a short-term intervention, they added, tankers would continue to supply water to affected customers until the system fully recovered, and 61 tankers would be dispatched.

A large group of frustrated residents protested outside the municipality’s Sizakala Centre in uMhlanga during the visit by the City officials.

They held placards and empty water containers to highlight their plight.

Residents protested over the water outage in areas north of Durban at the Sizakala Centre in uMhlanga yesterday. Picture: Doctor Ngcobo African News Agency (ANA).

“The area has been without water for the past nine days and on the heels of the taxi strike last Tuesday has had a crippling impact on the tourism sector.

“Guest houses, hotels and businesses are showing 100% cancellations over this long weekend which is now growing in creating an undesirable image for visitors to eThekwini as a whole.

“This, combined with the beach closures, is a fatal blow,” said Duncan Heafield, chairperson of the uMhlanga Tourism Association.

“They are currently advising that there is an airlock issue. The municipality took officials on an oversight visit to each of the empty water tanks reservoirs,” he said.

Brett Tungay of the Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (Fedhasa) said: “I have been briefed by the accommodation and restaurant businesses, especially in the uMhlanga area, that it was devastating for the weekend, huge numbers of cancelled bookings, the restaurants definitely did not do anywhere near anticipated turnover for the long weekend, the effect has been atrocious.”

He said the reputation of uMhlanga was on the line.

“As the one business owner said to me – it has taken 50 years to build the reputation of uMhlanga as a tourism destination and the past two years with all the issues that have been going on with the beaches and load shedding, they are unravelling all of that.”

Tungay said the long-term effect of this would not be good.

“The hospitality sector relies on long weekends like this to survive and this water crisis has done huge damage to a lot of businesses in that area.”

Speaking as a resident of the area, Dean Macpherson, DA provincial chairperson, said that the residents of Durban North had been subjected to “hell on earth”.

“Hospitals, schools, old-age homes do not have water, business are suffering and trips to Durban (by tourist and the like) are cancelled all because of this incompetence, we went to a meeting at the Sizakala Centre and it was just excuses,” he said.

Clinton Jones, another resident, said residents wanted answers.

“We were given only four water tankers, others from the area are from private organisations. How does the municipality expect all of us to have sufficient water? We hope that they stick to the promises they gave us and that tomorrow we will get water,” he said.

IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi, who was part of the visit, said the situation was desperate. “It’s disappointing that the area has a lot of investors who see that area as world class, but yet the municipality is failing to maintain it and provide services. The municipality is now failing to provide services to the poor and those who pay huge rates.”

DA councillor Yogis Govender said the outage affected four wards and potentially 100 000 people.

“The areas are high density, with a substantial amount of businesses, hotels, restaurants and residential units that have simply had enough.”

In a statement following the visit, the chair of the Governance and Human Capital Committee Councillor Nkosenhle Madlala said since the outage, the eThekwini Water and Sanitation (EWS) team had been working tirelessly to identify the cause and to find a solution.

He said the EWS teams spent a lot of time trying to locate where the restriction was blocking the free flow of water.

“During the investigations, technical teams discovered that an air valve in a water pipeline had been tampered with, and another valve was vandalised. These valves have since been repaired by the municipality and a case of sabotage was opened at the Greenwood Park Police Station. We call on law-enforcement agencies to urgently investigate the matter.”

THE MERCURY