For the past two and a half years, thousands of Phoenix residents have continued to bear the brunt of water shortages despite uMngeni Water confirming that the issue would be resolved by June 2023.
Ward 51 Councillor Lyndal Singh who raised questions regarding the issue last year, has once again posed questions at a full council meeting after continuous complaints and growing frustrations from irate members of the public.
In her list of questions, Councillor Singh questioned why residents, who are being fed by the Phoenix Reservoir 2, are still experiencing nightly water cuts. In response, the council stated that the Phoenix Reservoir 2 was not coping due to supply and demand issues.
“Normally, once the system stabilises, we will be in a position whereby we do not have to close the Phoenix Reservoir 2 every night to build up storage. Recently, we have also experienced burst pipes on the Northern Aqueduct which a shut had to be done to affect the repairs. Due to this issue, the two compartments need to be balanced whereby the outlets of the compartment will be opened on a rotational basis: while compartment one outlet is opened, compartment two will be closed to build storage and vice versa. The system may take some time to stabilise and once the system has stabilised, the nightly cuts will be stopped.”
When questioned why councillors and residents are not provided with information timeously, council responded: “Unfortunately, reservoir systems are hydraulic in nature comprised of pipeline, mechanical equipment and various other components to make the system function efficiently. It does happen sometimes that reservoirs do run to low level and the operations teams, when notified, with the limited resources currently, must conduct troubleshooting and check all scenarios to find the root cause. Unfortunately, these troubleshooting exercises take a lot of time while the outlets are closed and the consumers are affected. Telementry branch is fully updated with every reservoir that is shut due to low level and the call centre can obtain this information internally from telemetry section on a 24-hour basis and relay the information to various stakeholders. As there are emergency operations, it is sometimes not possible to cascade these to all councillors every time we shut a reservoir to build up storage.”
Council stated that water from Phoenix reservoir 2 was not being diverted to any other reservoir and that the reservoir has its own zone, making it impossible to supply any other reservoir from Phoenix Reservoir 2. Cllr Singh also questioned when residents are expected to have permanent water supply, to which council responded: “A definite time frame cannot be established at this moment, until the system has stabilised.”
Speaking to the Phoenix Tabloid, Cllr Singh said: “When I previously questioned officials from the water department and the city manager about the issue at hand, there was no response, which is blatant disrespect and a slap in the face of our ratepayers. I had to then pose questions at a full council meeting in order to get the information or answers which we needed and was not forthcoming via other correspondence. The poor to no communication leaves residents even more frustrated.”
She said: “The vague answers provided to questions with no timeline provides, shows exactly how uncaring this city really is. The ANC governed municipality is failing its residents. This municipality is on the brink of collapse, residents don’t have water daily, yet 58% of the water purchased from uMgeni Water is lost due to failing infrastructure such as leaks and burst pipes. Surely, there should be proper forward planning by this municipality so that residents are not burdened with continuous water disruptions. This big question of how much longer, which municipality cannot answer even after such a long period of time has passed, is unacceptable.”
“The Democratic Alliance and irate residents of the community, demanding every day water supply, took this issue to the door step of the water department yet nothing has changed. This municipality needs to allocate budget to ensure the upgrade of the infrastructure at Phoenix Reservoir 2. I will continue to take up this fight on behalf of our residents until we get permanent water supply,” added Cllr Singh.
