This morning Uthukela District Municipality team led by Chairperson for Water, Sanitation and Technical Services Cllr S Dlungwane visited Moyeni area under Okhahlamba municipality. He was accompanied by Okhahlamba Deputy Mayor Cllr T Ngozo, Mayoral Office Manager L Mthonti, Special Programmes Manager B Mkhize, Technical staff and service provider.
The purpose of the visit was to check on the status of water projects in the area. These projects are production borehole and spring protection. The production borehole project has been completed but the only thing left is to energize the system. Water testing has been done and it was found to be good for consumption.
Cllr Dlungwane was, however, not entirely satisfied with the progress as he said the last time they were there the service provider promised that by this time everything would be working. There was also a huge concern raised about theft in the area where it was said a pipe connected from the borehole was once removed and stolen.
Currently people in this area rely on a water tank that is frequently filled by Uthukela District through water tanker. Mr Mthonti urged the community to look after the stand pipes as they are normally vandalized which regress the progress.
Five stand pipes are already connected to the production borehole and about 60 households in the area stand to benefit from the project. Cllr asked the service provider to also add one more stand pipe for the benefit of people living beyond the main road. Service provider informed the team that the spring protection project is experiencing some challenges in relation to water and theft of out of the infrastructure.
The team then went to do oversight visit at Moyeni-Zwelisha water treatment works where a new submerged water pump was installed. The plant supplies water to wards 6, 7, 8 and 9. Challenges experienced are illegal connections. During a walk-about inside the plant it showed that everything was running smoothly.
Cllr Dlungwane was pleased with what he had seen but was only concerned with the backfilling that was still to be done. He instructed the Area Engineer to place an order for a dosing chemical to purify water in the plant.
