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EThekwini municipality has for the umpteenth time this year, abdicated their responsibility to serve residents with water to the communities of Phoenix, Verulam, Tongaat, Durban North, Umhlanga and surrounding areas during another four-day water outage.

Calls and emails by DA Ward Councillors for water tankers fell on deaf ears, as they were told that there were no tankers available. Officials in the eThekwini Water Department also failed to give regular updates to Ward Councillors, which led to frustration among the communities. This has become an occurrence we are now all too familiar with in the city.

From the devastating April 2022 floods to this past weekend, residents have experienced inhumane conditions with water shortages in all these areas at the hands of the ANC-EFF coalition and senior officials like the Deputy City Manager for Water and Sanitation, Ednick Msweli who just refuse to do their job and provide water to residents.

In the municipality’s absence, the private sector had to work tirelessly day and night to provide water to communities, at their own expense. The DA expresses our gratitude for this initiative, but this by no means absconds the municipality from its mandate to deliver basic services.

The ANC has destroyed everything they have touched in eThekwini and the Municipality must now be placed under administration. We continue to commit to the residents of eThekwini that the first order of business for a new coalition government will be to place the municipality under administration and get rid of those officials who are unwilling or unable to do their jobs.

It is time to rescue eThekwini, by voting for a government that has successfully proven that good governance is still possible in South Africa. Where the DA governs, they deliver.

Issued by Bradley Singh, MPL - DA PVT Constituency Head