Durban - Work on fixing some of eThekwini Municipality’s infrastructure ravaged by the April storms is about to start after the city received R184 million in funding from the National Treasury.
Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda announced the receipt of the funds during a joint media briefing with the business community at the Durban City Hall yesterday.
The briefing was attended by city manager Musa Mbhele, the president of the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI), Prasheen Maharaj, chairperson of the DCCI Tourism Forum Samantha Croft, and the DCCI chief executive, Palesa Phili.
The briefing was meant to showcase the partnership between government and business, with the two parties calling for a joint approach in tackling the city’s challenges.
“We are happy to announce that work to repair the sanitation infrastructure is about to commence following the allocation of disaster relief funding from the National Treasury.
“While most welcome, this funding of R184m is inadequate, so we have re-prioritised our budget to fast-track these much-needed repairs. The estimated cost of the repairs is R160m for pump stations and over R300m for Water Treatment Works,” said Kaunda.
Kaunda was giving a status update on the work being done to repair the damaged infrastructure and to prepare the city for the upcoming holidays.
“It is our fervent hope that these all-important repairs will ensure that our beaches are not contaminated so that they can remain open throughout the festive season.”
He addressed numerous challenges that have been raised by ratepayers and the business community.
Kaunda spoke about crime and grime, saying like any other city in the world, “we are not spared by homelessness. As a result, the city, through our Safer Cities Programme, has come up with a progressive programme to rehabilitate our homeless residents who are also affected by a number of social ills.
“Our intervention seeks to curb, among other challenges, the unfortunate habit of destroying our infrastructure with an intention of selling our assets for survival.
“Because of the magnitude of this behaviour, we have instructed the head of metro police through the city manager to embark on an aggressive law-enforcement operation to root out this behaviour.
“Consequence management will be implemented if this situation does not improve,” he said.
Kaunda said with regards to waste management, the city had introduced a targeted approach to rid the city of grime and filth.
“For instance, in each street in the inner city, we have deployed dedicated teams that are going to pick up litter and sweep the streets in all shifts. This is going to be complemented by area managers doing inspections during their shifts in the areas they are supervising.
“We have also embarked on an intensive communication campaign to encourage residents to clean their environment,” said Kaunda, urging businesses to refrain from illegal waste disposal.
Kaunda touched on the efforts to restore water in oThongathi.
“We are pleased to report that residents in some parts of oThongathi have started receiving water from their taps after the completion of a tie-in on the Mamba Ridge Pipeline to the Hazelmere Waterworks Avondale Reservoir pipeline.
“The new connection directs two million litres of water a day from the Hazelmere Dam to some parts of oThongathi. We are working tirelessly to complete repairs to the oThongathi Water Treatment Plant. The full repairs are expected to be completed by the end of October and by November 4, we should be able to commission the plant. We can report that currently the progress on the repairs is at 75%.”
Maharaj said the city and business were facing a common challenge of poverty and unemployment and therefore should work together to deal with it.