Durban – Msunduzi mayor Mzimkhulu Thebolla has given the water-starved community of uMgungundlovu an assurance that the water supply challenges that have plagued the area in the past few years could be resolved within the next two years.
Thebolla was speaking during an oversight visit by President Cyril Ramaphosa to the Midlands area recently to inspect water facilities in the area.
The government had spent close to R1 billion upgrading or building water facilities in the area including the Vulindlela Rural Bulk Water Supply Scheme.
The department of water and sanitation said in a statement leading up to the visit, that the Vulindlela Bulk Water Supply Scheme is one of government’s most successful projects post-1994 and is situated in Vulindlela, west of Pietermaritzburg.
The scheme was constructed in 1998 and was subsequently fully operational following its adoption as a National Presidential Lead Project.
The statement said the upgrading of the bulk water scheme is as a result of the population growth of Vulindlela over the past decade as well as the increased municipal demand for water.
It said one of the key components of Phase 1 of the upgrade will be the construction of a new reservoir to increase drinking water storage by an additional 20 megalitres per day to reach 35 megalitres per day, so that more water will become available for distribution to communities within the Vulindlela region.
The upgrades will also include the installation of new pipelines between different reservoirs and the construction of a new pump station to increase supply of water and augmentation of power supply, said the statement.
Thebolla said, “We are quite happy here in Vulindlela (about) the work that we have done over the past few years to increase the water scheme capacity in this area.
“We can assure the community of Vulindlela (of steady water supply) in the next 18 months, they will see the difference. In the meantime in these 18 months, we had assured the community that we will be building boreholes and the first one is complete, by the end of September, we would have built 18 boreholes across Vulindlela, but in the main, within the next 24 months everyone in this area will have access to tap water,” said Thebolla.
