DEAR Editor,-
At the recent Ugu council meeting, the DA submitted a motion for Ugu council to call on the Minister of Water and Sanitation to commission Umgeni Water-Amanzi to take over the remaining bulk supply of water from Ugu District Municipality.
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During the debate, ANC councillors could not provide a good reason why Ugu should retain this function in the southern areas, but chose rather to stoke racial divisions and point fingers. Numerous ANC councillors, including Ugu District Mayor, Mondli Chiliza, showed their lack of knowledge by not knowing that Umgeni Water-Amanzi already manages bulk services in some parts of the Ugu District Municipality.
The Kwa-Zulu Natal South Coast has suffered severe water outages over the past three years. Numerous coastal towns of the lower South Coast, as well as the inland areas of KwaXolo, Gcilima and KwaNzimakwe, have been without water for weeks on end. The Democratic Alliance believes that the Ugu District Municipality is not capable of managing the bulk water services and that these services should be taken over by Umgeni Water-Amanzi.
Residents of the Ugu District Municipality have suffered from these water outages, not because of the drought, but due to the lack of capacity and knowledge to balance reservoirs and mend pipes.
Recently the mayor admitted they found a valve they didn’t know existed.
Umgeni Water-Amanzi has a long track record of service within KwaZulu-Natal, currently supplying bulk services to eThekwini, Msunduzi and numerous other municipalities. Currently, Umgeni Water-Amanzi manages three of the water treatment works in the northern areas of the Ugu District Municipality. During the ongoing water crisis, these areas of Umdoni and Umzumbe Municipalities had no bulk water problems.
Despite this motion being defeated by the ANC, the DA still believes that it is in the best interests of the Ugu District Municipality for it to relinquish the balance of the bulk services and to hand these over to Umgeni Water-Amanzi. And for it to concentrate on the reticulation from the reservoirs to all its residents.
The DA Ugu constituency will continue to fight for Umgeni Water-Amanzi to take over all bulk services. We will be escalating this to the water and sanitation portfolio committee in parliament through our shadow minister. All residents of Ugu District Municipality deserve their right to water to be protected.
LEONARD NGCOBO
DA Ugu District Municipality Caucus Leader
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