Community organisations’ input needed for water woes
There is a need to forge an alignment with the community and government to form a social compact to hold each other accountable.
The South Coast Water Action Group (SCWG) is asking various organisations in the community that are troubled by the constant water outages to reach out to it.
The SCWG is one of the organisations that is part of the recently established war room aimed at addressing Ugu District Municipality’s water woes.
The group said according to the wishes of the KZN Premier, Sihle Zikalala, there is a need to forge an alignment with the community and government to form a social compact to hold each other accountable.
The group said although it was elected to be in that war room, it needs to communicate with different organisations such as faith-based, schools and so forth so that it can have input from different parts of the district, and to also update those organisations on what is happening in the war room.
“All representative bodies are invited to send contact details and a short description of the entity. That will ensure participation and allow for a good relationship to be developed with the citizens and with the local government. According to the Premier, community participation focuses on water issues in the short term but the long-term view is to assist local government to improve basic services especially access to water, job creation, growing the economy, growing SMMEs and cooperatives, education, health, and skills development, human settlements and sustainable livelihoods, building a peaceful province, building a caring and incorruptible government,” said the group.
It added that an overarching forum called the Citizens Action Group (CAG) will now be populated with the contacts and a communication network will be established.
The group said interested organisations can send an email to watersetbacks@gmail.com.
Meanwhile, in a recent statement Ugu municipal spokesperson France Zama said following the recent interventions by the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu together with the KZN Premier Sihle Zikalala, stringent measures were put in place to address the existing water supply disruptions in the district.
Zama said these measures are tailored to provide short and long-term relief to the affected areas across the district.
“While implementation of these measures is underway, members of the public should take comfort in the improvements that have been realised in some areas through these measures. An appeal for calm and patience is therefore made to our consumers while the municipality focuses its energies on the water recovery measures in the district,” said Zama, adding that a war room has been established to monitor and exert impetus towards a six-point plan aimed at vigorously dealing with the water supply situation across the district.
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