The eThekwini Municipality announced on Thursday that low levels at reservoir 2 at uMngeni-uThukela’s Durban Heights Treatments Works has caused water outages or inconsistent water supply in the northern parts of the city.
The City said it wants to re-emphasise its call to homeowners and businesses to cut their water consumption because present demand far outstrips supply.
In a statement, the City said: “Depletion of bulk water is due to excessive demand from consumers. Reservoir 2 supplies areas in the north, following the changeover from reservoir 3 earlier this year.
“To expedite the process to build sufficient water levels at reservoirs, outlets supplying water to areas in the north have been closed since last night.”
The relevant staff will be deployed to monitor the levels and will open the exit valves once the reservoirs reach an acceptable level. The municipality apologised for any difficulty caused.
Social media users did not take kindly to the announcement and accused the municipality of incompetence and corruption.
“This time can you all for once do something right and get qualified people to fix this problem it can't be a problem for every day for the past three years,” commented a Facebook user.
Another added: “You treat the north of Durban with absolute contempt despite it including your highest paying rate base and have for the past year. It is not only water but everything we are supposed to get for the exorbitant rates we pay. You cannot even cut the grass in any of the parks since December. I am in full support of a rates boycott which is brewing at a rapid pace.”
One said that even reservoir 4 is affected.
“There must be an investigation about who is being bribed to cut our water supply,” commented a citizen.
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