EVEN though residents still want potholes to be fixed, more street lights, verges to be cut and refuse to be collected regularly, water was top on of the agenda at an imbizo hosted by the Hibiscus Coast Municipality at the Port Shepstone Civic Centre on Monday.
Though attendance was poor, those who attended voiced their concerns when it came to water supply. The community of Oshabeni said they were faced with serious water problems in their community.
Sifiso Cele of Oshabeni said the community was battling with erratic water supply. He thanked Ugu for the Jojo tanks the municipality had placed in Oshabeni, but pointed out that these tanks often ran out of water.
He added that whenever they contacted Ugu to bring a water truck, Ugu would never come. “We would like more standpipes in the area and for the water trucks to come through our area once a week,” he said.
Ugu speaker Sithembiso Cele, who represented Ugu at the imbizo, admitted that Ugu was facing challenges in distributing water.
“Ugu is faced with water problems as the demand for water is higher than the supply,” said the speaker. He added that another problem the municipality faced was that the water pipes are too old.
Cllr Cele revealed that the municipality was currently busy with a pipeline replacing programme to replace all the outdated pipes. “R10 million has been set aside for this programme and phase one has already started,” he explained.
In her speech HCM mayor, Cynthia Mqwebu assured the community that HCM has many projects which are under way, such as the upgrade of the electricity network.
“This entails increasing the capacity of the system in order to avoid possible outages in the future, especially in light of the anticipated construction of the Justice Park,” she said.
She added that the tender for this project was advertised last week, and an appointment would be made by the end of February next year.
“Amongst the projects completed for this cluster is the upgrade of Umtentweni Beach, as well as the fencing of the Merlewood Community Centre. The combo court in Merlewood and the Marburg sports field are also being attended to as we speak, and we hope to have completed the work by the end of next week,” she said.
