Water crisis at Dumbe

Ronnie Gevers writes:-

THE Democratic Alliance (DA) has strongly raised the issue about water shortage in our town and rural areas, to the Zululand District Municipality who are directly responsible for water in the whole of Dumbe Local Municipality. The DA has also raised this issue at council level and has requested the Mayor, Honourable Cllr BM Nxusa, to ask for an action plan .

In the region of between 350 and 450 kilo litres of water per day are distributed from the dam with water tankers to the rural areas.

On Friday, July 3, it was revealed that, if both water pumps were pumping water from the dam to the purification plant they would be sucking air because of the low levels of water at the suction point.

This is a major concern to the DA and the community of Dumbe as a whole. The DA has requested both the local municipality and the Zululand District Municipality to come up with an action plan.

We are now not even halfway through winter, and to make a realistic prediction and based on history, we will only get good rains towards the middle of October this year. So from now until then the situation will only get worse.

We as the DA suggest that strict water restrictions must be implemented to force the whole community to save water and to survive with the bare minimum of water.

The notice, regarding water saving, that was distributed to the community earlier last week, is unfortunately inadequate because it does not force people to save water. It only recommends everybody to be cautious with water usage.

The DA has requested Zululand DM to convene weekly meetings with stakeholders, business and residents so that we can put heads together and try to come up with a solution for this crisis.

We suggest stringent rules that have to be adhered to by everyone.