Durban - The provincial government has established a task team consisting of key government departments to respond to the sewage and infrastructure crises facing eThekwini Municipality and threatening to undermine the city’s festive season plan.
MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (Edtea), Siboniso Duma, said, during a telephonic interview with The Mercury, that the provincial government would do everything possible to ensure that Durban was ready for the holidays.
He revealed that his department was among several that were part of a task team assembled by Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube, to ensure a speedy response to some of the challenges faced by the municipality.
He also implied that they wanted to ensure that by the end of this month, most of the challenges that were negatively affecting tourism were dealt with.
The city’s own officials and councillors have also said they want to see beaches reopened by December 1.
Duma was speaking on the efforts and the plans by the provincial government to help eThekwini, which has lost its status as the premier tourism destination in the country, recover.
The city is recovering from the devastating floods in April this year and looting in July last year. Some of the challenges facing the city include the increasing number of homeless people, some of whom take part in criminal activities such as theft and the vandalising of infrastructure.
The impact of the storms has been acutely felt by the city as it caused extensive damage to poorly maintained infrastructure, causing sewage to leak into rivers and eventually the beaches, leading to the contamination of sea water.
Most beaches have been reopened, but some remain closed.
Speaking on the efforts to help the city recover and put its tourism industry back on track, Duma said that the provincial government wanted to see all the key problems addressed by the end of this month so that the city can host tourists by the start of the festive season.
“The premier, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has set up a task team that will respond to the issue of pollutants and other challenges that have an impact on tourism. The task team is made up of several other departments.
“If there is pollution on the beaches, we should respond, if there is an issue with the roads, the Department of Transport should be responding with urgency,” he said.
Duma said he was confident that Durban would recover its tourist numbers, and that despite the challenges it faced it was still able to attract visitors, citing the football conference being hosted by the city as one example.
He said the province and the city were working hard to ensure that the infrastructure that was damaged was fixed as a matter of urgency, adding that the contractors had already been appointed and were attending to the damaged infrastructure.
He said it was important for the municipality to take steps to protect its infrastructure, and as part of that, it must put in place a by-law “banning the sale of scrap metals to curb the theft and damage of its infrastructure”.
He said one of the contributing factors to the pollution and the sewage spills is the damage done to water and sewer pipes and other infrastructure by thieves looking for scrap metal to sell.
“What we want to see is for the eThekwini Municipality to pass a by-law banning the sale of metals, as that is the cause of some of the damage to the pipes that are stolen and sold for scrap,” said Duma, adding that scrap metal dealers should be held accountable for the metals found in their possession.
Heinz de Boer, a DA committee member in the Economic Development Department, said the task team was set up following complaints about two weeks ago, but there had been no communication of the work it had done.
Among its tasks, he said, was to address the supply chain problems that were being experienced. He said there is no quick fix to the pollution until the infrastructure was rebuilt.
The crisis in tourism was not going to go away, he said, pointing out that many of the companies that could do the work would be shutting down for the Christmas period in a few weeks.
He said key infrastructure in certain areas of the city had not been fixed and was leaking raw sewage into rivers, and “any pronouncement that we will have a successful tourism season is highly irresponsible”.