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eThekwini buys more water tankers to cut hiring costs

  • A fleet of new water tankers acquired by eThekwini Municipality on display.
  • Image Credits :
  • SABC-News_Water-Tankers_Nonkululeko-Hlophe
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The eThekwini municipality has purchased 55 new water tankers, despite having over a 100 tankers currently.

The city claims this is in a bid to reduce the cost of hiring water tankers and says over R100 million per year is spent on this.

Several communities across the municipality have been battling water shortages that were exacerbated by flood damage to sewerage and water infrastructure in April and May last year.

Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda say the current fleet of 100 tankers is not suitable for parts of the metro’s terrain.

Kaunda says damage to water infrastructure during last year’s floods in April and May necessitated the purchase.

“We have been having challenges of water tankers where we outsource more than 55 of them from private service providers. We took a resolution as a city that we need to buy our own machinery so that we are able to reach any terrain within the city because there has been some complains in the city some of our own water tankers were unable to reach out to difficult terrains in the city. In total they are 55, we have spent around R138 million to procure these 55 water tankers.”

The city’s water woes have led to service delivery protests in several towns.

Kaunda has confirmed that there are still areas experiencing water challenges.

“We still have areas where our water infrastructure has been severely affected but we are fixing that. You remember the fire incident in Ntuzuma which affected KwaMashu, Inanda and Lindelani, we are doing the permanent work there but we have put the temporal intervention but the other intervention we have also done in areas like in Umlazi. We have already decided that we need to unblock some of the lines in the area by ensuring we remove some sections in Umlazi to be sourcing water from Isipingo and Woodlands so that we are able to supply communities of Umlazi adequately.”

Tweet from Nonkululeko Hlope:

The municipality says the new purchase will save them a hiring fee of R100 million a year.
Kaunda elaborates, “If you look at the cost of a water tanker per month it depends on the mileage they charge per mileage, how many kilometres if you hire services, how many kilometres from this section to another section but we have been paying millions of rands. We have been spending more than R100 million to hire water tankers which will then now be reduced since we have got our own. We are no longer going to be outsourcing.”
The municipality also says they have tightened security by installing cameras to prevent the theft of diesel from their water tankers.

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