Durban — Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shack Dwellers) Movement has voiced concerns over insolvent water sanitation infrastructure in many areas in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) following last year’s April floods.
This comes after eThekwini Metro’s head of international relations, Eric Apelgren, said the City planned to stimulate partnerships with countries that can transmit knowledge of water sanitation in flood conditions in KZN.
Apelgren said the City’s water sanitation infrastructure was under immediate construction.
“We took a huge knock. Our infrastructure, in particular, had sewage and sanitation compromised, and those are being repaired.
“I think we need to do more, and what we are doing with our international partners, in particular, most of the G-20 countries, is looking at best practices and learning from other countries on how to put in place mitigation strategies, and how do you deal with the current crises,” said Apelgren.
He said the City would be sending teams to Germany to look at how they have dealt with water and sanitation problems in flood conditions.
Abahlali baseMjondolo general secretary Thapelo Mohapi said that shack dwellers were heavily affected by last year’s floods and many areas continued to not have access to water and sanitation, and the municipality has failed to provide water tanks to these communities.
“It is unfortunate that after a year, the municipality is still failing to provide the most basic service that all human beings need,” said Mohapi.
He said only 37% of informal settlements had access to clean water, and 47% had access to clean toilets since the floods last year, which showed that the municipality had not taken the issue of these basic services as a priority.
“The municipality has failed the people living in informal settlements who were affected by floods,” said Mohapi.
DA eThekwini executive committee member councillor Yogis Govender said the City had a dismal track record with its watercourses, which are not cleared of litter and alien vegetation and restored with indigenous vegetation.
“International best practice is definitely a consideration, but why does eThekwini Municipality have to expend money on that when they have not exhausted their own local remedies?
“eThekwini has wonderful programmes like the transformative riverine management programme (TRMP), which restores and protects the city’s rivers, but the key failure is they cannot implement their own programmes successfully.”
KZN ActionSA chairperson Zwakele Mncwango said it was good to foster partnerships with other countries.
“eThekwini should be talking about how you handle the issue of ageing infrastructure and plans to deal with the infrastructure,” said Mncwango.
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