I have been informed by the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality that the main cause of the water outages in eThekwini in early January 2021 was the lack of capacity within the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality to deal with mechanical and electrical failures. There was a delay in the awarding of the maintenance contracts which are now in the final stages of procurement and should be awarded within the next month.
I am further informed that electricity outages result in a shortage of supply when there is load shedding. Therefore, the unit that deals with electricity issues in the municipality has been approached to find a way of excluding Wiggins and Durban Heights Waterworks from load shedding. I have been advised that it has now been agreed that the two works will be excluded from load shedding when ESKOM imposes levels below Level 3 load shedding.