A river of sewage at Khabazela Village in Avoca Hills. File Picture: Motshwari Mofokeng/African News Agency (ANA)
Durban — ActionSA in KwaZulu-Natal says it is preparing legal action against the eThekwini Municipality over its “sewage-ridden” beaches.
ActionSA KZN chairperson Zwakele Mncwango said that its legal team is preparing legal action against the municipality for failing to urgently arrest the flow of effluent and waste into the river systems and oceans in the city. This has resulted in the closure of beaches, health concerns for residents and long-term damage to sensitive ecosystems.
This comes after ActionSA, on October 19, issued the municipality with a letter of demand urging it to address the matter, Mncwango said. But this situation has been allowed to continue for more than six months and must be stopped.
“Of equally grave concern is the apparent lack of a coherent plan and timeline to resolve the problem. The floods alone cannot be blamed for the prevailing situation,” Mncwango said.
“To that end, we will ask the courts to compel the city to act and, if necessary, be held in contempt criminally for its failure to do so.”
Mncwango said that on October 20, ActionSA launched a two-week online public participation process to hear first-hand the human cost of the municipality’s inaction from affected residents and businesses.
ActionSA has been inundated with submissions solicited from the public, he said. These will now form the basis of the legal action we will take on behalf of South Africans adversely affected by the closure and damage to our coastline.
Mncwango said that Section 152 of the Constitution is unequivocal on the responsibility of local governments to promote social and economic development and to provide a safe and healthy environment. In these respects, and for many months, eThekwini has objectively failed to live up to this prescription of the Constitution, he said.
“It is a tragedy that it is necessary for governments to be taken to court to compel them to attend to the fundamentals of service delivery. It is a demonstration of the role required from ActionSA to win support away from the ANC to ensure that new governing coalitions can take office and deliver the services needed by the residents of eThekwini and KwaZulu-Natal,” Mncwango said.
Days ago, the Daily News reported that a sewer pipeline that has been blocked for a month has left the management of the Durban Eye and Laser Clinic frustrated while leaking sewage has been detected in the Umbilo River.
The blockage at the clinic has caused sewage water to flow down the driveway in the corner of the property where the Humana Health Centre is situated along Hopelands Road in Overport.
Recently, Mncwango told the municipality to fix the sewer system or face court action.
The situation has been allowed to continue for mre than six months and it must be stopped. Of great concern is the apparent lack of a coherent plan and timeline to resolve the problem.
“The infrastructure renewal and maintenance of our sewer system is a fundamental function of a metro municipality, and the historic failure of this function is directly to blame for the malfunction of sewerage pump stations in various locations in the city since the floods in April,” Mncwango said.
In September, ActionSA reported that the municipality’s executive committee approved the allocation of R93 million to address the municipality’s sewer crisis.
This was according to ActionSA eThekwini caucus leader Alan Beesley, who said the municipality had heeded its call to urgently address the sewer crisis.
Beesley said ActionSA welcomed the approval by the municipality’s council to allocate R93m to urgently address the sewer crisis in the municipality.
He said the allocation of funds and the urgency of the matter had arisen from the intense pressure that ActionSA had brought to bear.
“While the allocation of the R93m to address the sewer crisis does not mean the end of the problem, it is certainly a positive move with the matter having been elevated,” Beesley said.
Daily News