DA calls for heads to roll over catastrophic water crisis

3 January 2024

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in eThekwini Municipality calls for the immediate resignation of the Mayor, Cllr Mxolisi Kaunda, City Manager, Musa Mbhele, Deputy City Manager, Sbu Makhanya and Human Settlement and Infrastructure cluster Chairperson, EFF’s Themba Mvubu, for failing to resolve the ongoing catastrophic water crisis in the Phoenix, Verulam, Tongaat areas.

Mayor Kaunda has been far too detached from the lived realities of residents in affected communities, completely ignoring their fervent pleas for assistance for months. Likewise, EFF Cllr Themba Mvubu, who heads up this critical committee of Human Settlements and Infrastructure, has been completely ineffective during his term of office, providing no solution or leadership during this period.

The City Manager, Musa Mbhele, is currently unavailable along with eThekwini Water and Sanitation officials meant to be providing solutions to the water outage crisis in the above-mentioned areas. It is crystal clear that the ANC-EFF leadership does not have any solutions to the water crisis.

To add insult to injury, eThekwini Municipality wasted no time in dispatching Public Order Police (POP) to a peaceful gathering of residents to protest having no water for days and weeks on end.

The hardest hit areas are:
- New phase upper Madrona near the reservoir. (75 days without water)
- 9 Upper roads (54 days without water) (In all these days probably 2 hours off accumulated flow)
- The whole of Trenance Park, new and old phase, which has had no water since the morning of 01/01/24

Had eThekwini Municipality accepted the offer from the city of Cape Town to send a team of technical experts, the water crisis would not have been as dire. The DA wrote directly to the Mayor, Cllr Kaunda and the city manager tabling this offer but it was rejected.

The best and only way to ensure good governance in eThekwini is to remove the ANC, EFF, and NFP coalition completely. A dissolution of the council is the only remedy to replacing this failed administration with a DA-led government. 

Issued by Yogis Govender, DA eThekwini EXCO Member, 3 January 2024