Afro Voice reports that striking municipal workers have been blamed for taps running dry in the Ugu district. Some communities have been without running water for more than five days.

As the recently formed Joint Operations Centre considers declaring the district a disaster zone, the strike has entered its second week.

While allegations of lawlessness and tampering by striking municipal workers have emerged, it has also led to the intervention by the departments of cooperative governance and traditional affairs and transport, community safety and liaison.

Declaring the district a disaster zone will enable urgent activation of state resources to ensure stability is restored in the area. Municipal spokesperson Sphelele Cele said teams had been deployed to the affected areas.

However, the urgent moves to restore basic services to Ugu have been hampered.

“It seems that overnight some of the areas that were restored yesterday have been tampered with and we are working to bring those areas back online,” Cele said yesterday.

“We have also placed static tanks in the affected communities and are filling them continuously. We once again appeal to our communities to be our eyes and ears on the ground and report any suspicious activity around our water infrastructure.”

On Friday members of the KZN executive council convened an emergency meeting with the municipality in the wake of unrest in the district.

The latest labour dispute is over the non-payment of municipal staff that embarked on an illegal and unprotected strike action in March.

The municipality effected a no work, no pay principle and salary deductions were applied in May.

Cogta MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube said: “We are taking the situation very seriously as it presents a life threat with the disruption to basic services such as water. We cannot tolerate lawlessness.”

The water supply shortage has also affected the Port Shepstone Provincial Hospital. Closed circuit television cameras are being installed in the vicinity of all critical service infrastructure as a means to monitor and quell property damage. Areas without water have been asked to report it at the call centre on 0396885830/36 or to the ward councillor.

The original of this report by Sibongiseni Maphumulo appeared on page 3 of Afro Voice of 4 June 2018

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