E THEKW I NI • SERVICE D E L IVE RY
Dignity for residents through water and sanitation About a million eThekwini residents are supplied with water by the municipality on a daily basis. The City is continually looking for innovative ways to provide services to customers.
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he hard work that has been put in over the years has been recognised through the many awards and acknowledgements the City has received. Initiatives such as free basic water, water amnesty, flow limiters, the use of plasticbodied water meters, polypropylene water piping, ground tanks and semi-pressure water service levels and urine diversion toilets are some of the ways the City is achieving this. Other initiatives include anaerobic baffled reactors, the use of greywater for urban agriculture, customer services agents, and condominial sewerage. The City’s Customer Water Debt Repayment Policy was the first such implement to be introduced in South Africa. Water services Water is provided to 573 941 formal households and 387 161 informal and rural households, at a total of 961 122. According to Stats SA, there are a total of 1 159 272 households in eThekwini Municipality. The municipality currently maintains and manages
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327 water storage facilities from which water is delivered through an extensive distribution network supported by 98 pump stations and five purification works. The Water and Sanitation Unit is guided by the Water Services Development Plan, which seeks to ensure the efficient, affordable, economical, and sustainable provision of water services. The Water Services Development Plan deals with socio-economic, technical, financial, institutional, and environmental issues as they pertain to water services provisioning. Wastewater sanitation services EThekwini Municipality operates 27 wastewater treatment plants and 300 pump stations, treating over 500 million litres of wastewater per day. The backlog in providing sanitation services has progressed from 159 618 in 2015/16 to 198 150 in May 2021. This is due to the ongoing influx of people into the municipal area.
The municipality has introduced new and innovative methods to advance the delivery of services to residents. These solutions include urine diversion toilets, the reuse of greywater for agriculture, dedicated customer service agents, electronic workflow programmes, and specialised call centres. Informal settlements are also part of the provision of water and sanitation services. A total of 1 600 ablution facilities across 78 wards have been built, complete with shower facilities and toilets. Moreover, local communities were employed to supervise and to keep the facilities clean. A total of 1 650 permanent employment opportunities were created after construction of these ablution facilities. These ablution facilities provide access to running water, baths, showers, toilets, hand basins and external wash troughs. Each facility consists of two modified containers, so that there are separate male and female blocks. The installation of ablution facilities in informal settlements was implemented by the City with the aim of providing basic waterborne sanitation to informal settlements. The municipal authority also took the decision to provide people with a range of basic interim services while they await formal houses.
Addressing water infrastructure backlogs The municipality has, as part of its Infrastructure Planning, documented the nature and extent of the urban and rural backlogs in service delivery across the entire metropolitan area, using digital records held by the Municipality together with input from communities and councillors.
