Durban - Water supply in eThekwini will return to normal on Wednesday after the installation of a pump deep in a shaft at the Durban Heights water treatment works. The pump had tripped and had to be repaired in Johannesburg.
“It’s back on site and the reinstalling has started,” Gabsie Mathenjwa, who chairs Umgeni Water, told a press conference yesterday, sharing a platform with visiting Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu.
The pump failed last month, leading to areas on the outskirts of eThekwini, including Phoenix and areas of uMlazi, having severely interrupted water supplies. Residents often had to rely on tankers.
“Our maintenance was less than desirable and could have been better,” said Mathenjwa.
With the promise of full restoration of water supply came an apology from the minister, who pointed out that the problem had arisen because of a “less than desirable alertness in managing water”.
He added that there had been instability at the board after it was dissolved in 2019, an interim board established and the old board reinstated following a judgment.
It remained without a chief executive, a chief financial officer and a company secretary - positions that were expected to be filled in the next two to three weeks.
“On merit,” he stressed. “We have to make sure that what happened does not happen after this.”
He added that with those key positions being vacant, “there would be turbulence”.
The minister also laid into municipalities countrywide, saying they had always complained about leaks from ageing infrastructure rather than presenting solutions and discussing budgets to address the problems.
“It is good that we are talking to new councillors. We are pleading with them to rise to the occasion,” said Mchunu.
“We hope that we shall bury the narrative of old infrastructure into the past.”
He stressed that he had been in Durban on a scheduled visit, in line with visiting all provinces to see and understand water issues. He also discussed the uMkhomazi Water Project aimed at increasing water supply to meet future demand.
The work to repair the broken pump had cost R2.7 million. Adding to the city’s water woes had been the fact that the pump crisis happened when one of the reservoirs, or dams as they are called for their capacity, had been emptied for maintenance.
Umgeni Water board member Visvin Reddy said this happened only once in 50 years.
“The pump arrived on Thursday, way ahead of schedule,” he said.
“It has not been an easy thing. We were working around the clock, we set up a war room and a special management team that met daily to track the movement of these highly specialised, expensive pumps.”
He said this should alleviate the inconvenience caused to residents who had suffered water supply problems.
Standing beside the sloping side within the reservoir, which is rarely dry, project manager Bheki Mbambo explained that Durban was supplied with 540 megalitres of water per day.
On a lighter note, Reddy cautioned against venturing deep into the empty reservoir, warning that if one fell 25m to the bottom “you would most probably come out in a tap, somewhere in Durban”.
The Independent on Saturday