Water and Sanitation Minister to meet Phoenix residents over water crisis
Fed-up residents in Phoenix say they want the Water and Sanitation Minister to tell them exactly when they can expect to have uninterrupted running water in their taps again.
Senzo Mchunu will be meeting with residents at Shastri Park Community Hall on Sunday.
The community recently took to the streets to protest the ongoing water supply disruptions in the area, north of Durban.
They handed a memorandum of demands to eThekwini Municipality officials.
City mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda, says engineers have been who've been checking for leaks and blockages - and replacing valves on the Northern Aqueduct have made progress.
He's promised the outages will be resolved by Thursday [February 15]
Mervin Reddy of the civic organisation, Voice of Phoenix, believes the deadline is unrealistic.
"The valves are one aspect that is contributing to this major water crisis."
READ: Mchunu: eThekwini water woes almost solved
"What about the ageing infrastructure, the leaking pipes that still have to be repaired by the municipality that we all know has not been done because there was a moratorium put by Umgeni-Uthukela Water board to the eThekwini Municipality, that unless they take care of the other issues affecting the water supply, the problem will not go away.
He says they are losing 40% of water between Umgeni Uthukela and Durban Heights because of leakages and burst pipes.
Reddy says people are suffering, schools have to close early and operations at Mahatma Gandhi Hospital have been impacted.
The Phoenix Civic Movement's Selvan Govender says there's been very little communication from the municipality through the crisis.
"With the water crisis in full throttle there is no communication and another issue will be the lack of water tankers to communities around eThekwini. It seems that the worst communities have fewer or no tankers at all."
