AfriForum’s Lower South Coast branch calls on the Ugu District Municipality to immediately supply water to all water points that the municipality has made available to communities.
The purpose of these water points is to bring relief to residents who are without water, but the municipality is not doing its part to fill these points with water.
The organisation is receiving many complaints from members about the municipality’s inadequate water supply to communities due to water outages.
Areas that are worst affected are Palm Beach, Munster, Leisure Bay, Port Edward, Banners Rest, Hibberdene, Umzumbe, Pumula and Sea Park.
On February 25, AfriForum sent a letter to Ugu seeking clarity on the frequent water outages on the South Coast, especially in the far northern and southern parts of the area.
Some of our communities only have access to running water for two to three hours a week or every other week. There are also very serious water leaks that take days to repair, while litres of purified water are lost.
AfriForum demands answers from the municipality on why it is taking so long to repair these water leaks.
We see daily how the state, including municipal infrastructure, is getting worse, and we will have to do more to promote access to clean water.
AfriForum will continue to apply pressure on the municipality to ensure that the South Coast’s water problems are a thing of the past.
EUGENE VAN ASWEGEN
Provincial Coordinator: KwaZulu-Natal AfriForum
RESPONSE
We do note the assertions made by an NGO whose sole reason for existence is to advance the interests of the Afrikaner population.
This NGO has lately become synonymous with peddling of misinformation in an attempt to cause false alarm and undermine the genuine strides made by the municipality in providing water and sanitation services to our communities.
For the record, Ugu District Municipality has a constitutional obligation to provide water and sanitation services to 86 municipal wards in four local municipalities, namely Ray Nkonyeni, Umuziwabantu, Umzumbe and Umdoni.
We have continued to play our pivotal role in implementing our core functions of water and sanitation services across the district.
It is a well-documented fact that the ageing water and sanitation infrastructure continues to be a perennial threat to the provision of uninterrupted service of water and sanitation services in the district.
In addressing this, the municipality has, over the years, been implementing pipe replacement projects across the district and has also made an annual financial commitment of 11.38% of the municipal’s total budget to maintenance and repairs to municipal infrastructure. We continue to respond timeously to reported water supply disruptions wherever they occur.
We shall, therefore, never be deterred by right-wing elements towards advancing our core mandate of implementing major water and sanitation infrastructure projects across the district for the benefit of all residents in the Ugu district.
FRANCE ZAMA
Ugu District spokesperson
HAVE YOUR SAY
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