DURBAN - The DA in eThekwini has called for an urgent executive council meeting over the recent spate of “sanitation and electricity outage challenges”.
The DA’s caucus leader, Nicole Graham, wrote to the mayor of eThekwini, Mxolisi Kaunda, citing concerns about the economic and environmental impact of the city’s problem.
“The city is currently facing huge challenges with sanitation and electricity. Both are incredibly urgent and have a real impact on the municipality's residents, economy and environment. The municipality's failure to ensure that electricity support contracts were in place means that electricity repair capacity has been slashed since January 1. This has seen a number of major protests and several memorandums being issued to the powers that be.
“The turnaround time to repair electricity outages has increased drastically, and several staff members claim that they cannot work due to threats. This situation has been going on for a week now, and no real solution has been tabled or made public. This should concern members of the executive committee greatly. It necessitates an urgent and thorough investigation and planning for the way forward,” said Graham.
She noted the recent closure of seven beaches in the municipality, which was a result of what the city described as “unceasing” vandalism of sewage stations.
“Exco needs to interrogate what is happening at our pump stations and why they keep malfunctioning. 110 stations reportedly have no back-up pump, so if the first pump fails they overflow. Many pump stations that need generators do not have them and municipal infrastructure is old. This needs a way forward. The DA refuses to accept constant sewage spills, closed beaches and unhealthy communities as the norm. If eThekwini needs more money to fix these problems then a plan must be made.
“The first step to finding solutions is to get exco together with the relevant officials and managers and to get answers to the questions that linger in the air. The DA are ready and willing to get to work and play our part in finding solutions to eThekwini's problems,” said Graham.
Daily News