Durban — Residents and business owners held a public meeting on Saturday, to address water and power supply issues within eThekwini municipal ward 110, north of Durban.
The ward covers Glen Anil, Mount Moriah, Red Hill and parts of Durban North.
David Moran, owner of Eat Greek Foods, a food distribution company, said his business had been heavily affected. In the past 12 days Durban North had two days without a water supply and four power failures, Moran said. Less than a month ago, they had lost power for 27 hours. He said105 businesses within the building complex were affected.
Moran said that his business was highly dependent on power as it uses freezers and fridges for cold storage. By losing power frequently, it leads to a lot of stress.
Moran said the businesses were designated as light industrial – essential to the local economy. Moran claimed they were not informed as to when their load shedding was scheduled for.
“We are supposed to be in a non-residential load shedding zone because industry does not use power during peak periods. I have no idea what plans, if any, eThekwini has to address this issue. Logging faults is extremely difficult and trying to get any information on the progress of a fault is non-existent,” said Moran.
“We are losing hope, not only in eThekwini, but in KZN and we no longer see this as a viable place to run a business. Many of us are holding back on any forms of expansion,” said Moran.
Glenhills Glen-Anil Ratepayers Association Committee secretary Leanne Wallace said these kinds of matters deserved immediate attention from officials.
“We are in really tough times when we ourselves see our ward councillor, Aamir Abdul, struggle to help improve service delivery. The ratepayers of Glen Anil and Glenhills are grateful to Abdul for his every effort to help us get answers and make progress in our community,” Wallace said.
The association appealed to the municipality to replace the old, rusted and broken valves supplying the Durban North and ward 110 area.
“This will instantly alleviate the whole area from suffering when the fault can be shut off more locally, thus reducing the impact zone. We aim to support the councillor in the need to follow processes but will also band together to do what we can in our own capacity to improve the area that we live in,” said Wallace.
Abdul said the issue of constant water shortages and burst pipes was a major concern.
“Historically this community has been plagued by constant burst pipes due to failing water infrastructure. The main concern is that the main arterial lines supplying the Glen Anil area, both residential and industrial, are the old asbestos cement pipes. These need to be replaced,” said Abdul.
He said that a recent repair by the eThekwini Municipality took more than 40 hours to complete. When he contacted the eThekwini Municipality Water and Sanitation Department, they advised that in terms of response time to pipe repairs they had limited resources owing to budget constraints but have implemented ring-fenced teams called “Rapid Response Teams” for hot-spot areas.
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