Durban - PHOENIX residents are angry after unattended water pipe ruptures led to water outages in the area.
Jessica Pillay, of Grove End, has had water flowing into her yard
for weeks as a result of a burst
pipe.
“We suspect it’s an underground leak because the water has seeped into the tarmac and our yard. Our dog dug about a 30cm hole in the grass, that’s how deep it goes,” she said.
In messages shown to the Daily News, Pillay started complaining about the leak on June 20. Nothing has been done so far.
“Two people from the municipality came today and said the leak could be coming from my neighbour’s meter, but they needed a week for everything to dry off so they could identify exactly where it was coming from,” she said.
Jonathan Annipen, Minority Front councillor, took a drive around Phoenix and said he saw three places where there had been persistent water leaks - in Upper Northcroft, Southgate and Grove End.
“The turnaround time in fixing leaks is slow and that’s led to us being lambasted by the Auditor-
General in his report.
“There’s a lot of wasteful expenditure that’s a result of water loss,” he said.
In the latest 2017/2018 A-G report, it was said the city lost about 105.22 million kilolitres of water, which translates to R714million.
“The municipality needs to urgently embark on a massive water infrastructure upgrade and should look to creative funding models to address this matter,” read the A-G’s recommendation.
In the past few months the Daily News has reported several incidents of municipal water pipe bursts that have been left unattended. These occurred in Isipingo, Wentworth and Durban North.
Msawakhe Mayisela, eThekwini Municipality spokesperson, said the city was dealing with a lot of ageing infrastructure.
“We would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused to all residents. The city is trying its level best to respond to every situation as quickly as possible,” he said.
Mayisela said old asbestos pipes were being replaced.
The eThekwini Municipality announced yesterday that parts of Phoenix would be without water today due to high demand.
This was because of reservoirs running low after the city fixed a major leak on the Northern Aqueduct at Point K Duffs Road.