The DA in eThekwini municipality has called on the newly elected mayor of eThekwini to ‘dig deep’ into the causes of the water crises that have plagued the city.
Cyril Xaba was elected unopposed on Wednesday, replacing former mayor Mxolisi Kaunda.
The DA said in a statement that the new mayor must broaden the scope of his investigation with regards to water shortages and other service delivery challenges in the city.
The mayor raised concerns about water outages in parts of the city during his inaugural address.
Xaba had said, “Early this month, I received reports that some parts of Hillcrest & Clermont Extension, in the Pinetown area, were without water for an extended period. I found it utterly unacceptable.
“It degrades the quality of life of those affected and undermines their basic human rights. I shall write to the City Manager to ask for a detailed report as to why the residents of Clermont and Hillcrest were without water. Whether such could have been prevented or at least mitigated.
“Whether there was negligence on the part of our officials. And the proposed course of action. I shall be following up on other areas that have been without water for a considerable period, and I will treat this as urgent,” he said at the time.
DA councillor Welekazi Sibiya said the mayor must ‘dig deep’ to investigate the source of the water crises.
“The mayor promised to hit the ground running. He undertook, among other things, to write to the City manager to request a report about why the communities of Extension in Claremont and Hillcrest had recently gone without water supply for several days. He said he found this to be unacceptable and shocking,” she said.
The DA councillor said his party would like to bring it to the mayor's attention that this was a daily occurrence in many communities across the city.
The party said the people of Engonyameni, KwaXimba, Inanda, Ntuzuma, (Intake), Umlazi, Phoenix, Shallcross, Chatsworth - to name a few - go without water for days on end without any explanation from the municipality. The plight of the people is exacerbated by a shortage of water tankers.
“We call on the mayor to not limit his investigation to just the two areas mentioned in his speech as service delivery issues are widespread,” she said.
The Mercury