The Umzinyathi District Municipality yesterday met the deadline set by marchers who descended on the Princess Magogo building on February 14, demanding answers to ongoing water outages in the area and what was alleged to be widespread maladministration and corruption within Umzinyathi.

The letter, written by Council Speaker Cllr T Kunene invites members of the Endumeni Residents and Civic Associations, who organised the march, to a meeting on March 4 to discuss the wide ranging memorandum presented to the Speaker on February 14.

Organised by the Endumeni Residents Association and Endumeni Civic Association, the outrage brought together all communities who, monitored by a strong contingent of SAPS members.

Mzwakhe Sithebe of the ECA read out the memorandum when the march stopped outside the Umzinyathi office. The four-page letter, addressed to the Minister of Water and Sanitation and the KZN Premier called for immediate intervention from the National Minister into Umzinyathi’s water provision services.

With Umzinyathi experiencing water shedding for over 15 years and in some cases complete outages lasting for month, unattended sewer leaks and effluent flowing into mainly the Steenkoolspruit that flows into the Buffalo River – from where Endumeni’s water is extracted – the memorandum called for an investigation into the ‘water saga’.

Recent samples taken showed that in most cases the water coming out of the taps was not fit for human consumption.

• “We demand that bore holes be drilled at strategic locations, as an alternative to the ineffective and inefficient water tankers, which are used to enrich politicians, officials and their friends.”

Sithebe noted that ‘since 2016, the Auditor General has identified significant delays in the completion of water infrastructure projects, with R1.1 billion spent on incomplete projects over the years and, with the previous 2023/24 budget being overspent by 113%, proving how incompetent the mayor and his team of officials are. ‘

“The previous unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure was just written off with no effort on recovery and no official being held accountable for wrongdoings.”

He called on the KZN Premier to fully investigate claims of corruption, fraud and nepotisim at Umzinyathi which has rendered the municipality an effective provider of essential water services.

“The Premier must conduct a skills audit, to determine whether the individuals appointed to positions within the Municipality have the necessary skills and experience. The probe must also root out ghost employees.

“An audit on the use of the grant funding must be done to ensure money is spent on capital projects rather than other activities.

“The President must authorise a full forensic investigation by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) into the supply chain irregularities as identified by the 2023/24 Auditor General report.”

The ERA and ECA welcomed the response and hoped for a more positive outcome than has been yielded by previous meetings.\

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