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Water and Sanitation Minister, Senzo Mchunu stressed the importance of consistent and sustainable water supply and sanitation services in KwaZulu-Natal. Minister Mchunu was speaking during a ministerial working session with KwaZulu-Natal Midlands Municipalities today, Friday 04 November 2022 at Nautons Guest House in Ladysmith. 

During this working session, Minister Mchunu and Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation Dikeledi Magadzi extensively engaged uMzinyathi, uThukela, and Amajuba District Municipalities with a view of getting to grips with water and sanitation challenges facing the communities and also devising means to address those issues. 

The afore-mentioned municipalities were accorded an opportunity to provide comprehensive presentations focusing on access of water and sanitation to households, overview of water supply areas, revenue collections, billing systems, non-revenue water, water tankers servicing rural communities, ongoing bulk water projects, functionality of water treatment plants, and operations and maintenance amongst others. 

Addressing municipalities’ representatives during the engagement, Minister Mchunu urged them to stop taking pride in providing temporary services such as delivering water tanks and Ventilated Improved Pit toilets (VIP) and put a lot of emphasis on long-term solutions. 

“I would like to state this unequivocally, let us complete all projects that are meant to provide water supply and sanitation services to the people, even those that have been white elephants for as long as 10 years in some instances”, Minister Mchunu said.

Furthermore, Minister Mchunu cautioned municipalities not to invest a lot of money on emergency measures such as boreholes at the expense of piped water and reticulation. 

In addition, Risimati Mathye, the Deputy Director-General of Water Services Management at the Department of Water and Sanitation echoed Minister Mchunu’s sentiments by reiterating that water projects must be concluded. 

“Non-completion of water infrastructure such as water treatment works, and others leads to vandalism and theft because in most cases they are left unattended”, Mathye said.   

Subsequent to the robust deliberation, it clearly emerged that municipalities are encountering synonymous challenges in their efforts to deliver water to the people, and those challenges are: vandalism of water infrastructure, illegal connections, dysfunctional water schemes, insufficient operations and maintenance budget and inadequate or unreliable water sources.   

Issued by Department of Water and Sanitation