Like most Ugu residents we have not had water in Lynne Ave for over 70 days, with the exception of a couple of hours twice during the period. This is what you would expect in a village on the edge of the Sahara, not one with more than half-a dozen rivers. And of course water outages have been the history of the area for many years.
Now let me compare this with another place, another time. In 1987, Pietermaritzburg had a serious drought.
The city took immediate action and instituted rationing. Water meters were in any case read monthly, but householders could be seen daily checking their own meters. I checked mine daily, and put the results on our house notice-board. People who exceeded their ration were prevented from doing this again by the municipality installing a washer at the meter to reduce flow, a fact I discovered when visiting a colleague who had exceeded his limit.
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When there was no sign of the drought breaking, the municipality, not individuals, arranged for tankers and kept the public aware. The drought broke, and the tankers were not needed. The city also learned another lesson, old water meters were under-recording, so they were replaced, and the city gained revenue.
However the drought broke with a flood – I remember that a set of four concrete tennis courts was picked up and washed into the Msunduzi River; also, Merchiston School, which had, against advice, been built too near the river valley, was flooded to about a metre height. Pietermaritzburg is built on a hill and a flood plain. There was no damage to the infrastructure; no roads were washed away and the water system was unharmed.
I think that Ugu should explain why they could not act as Pietermaritzburg did. When doing this perhaps they could explain why they also had “qualified” or unsatisfactory audit this year and before.
DR R WORTLEY
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