Durban - Councillors and residents in eThekwini say the municipality is not replacing water meters that have been stolen for resale as scrap metal which has led to houses being fed through “bridged connections”, escalating water losses and sky-high bills as a result of usage being estimated.
They said they had been informed by City officials in the unit that the municipality had no spare meters at its stores.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the shortage of such a small but key component in the supply of water was a disgrace and DA councillor Yogis Govender said the shortage of water meters was an ongoing problem.
Municipal spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said the City was besieged by theft of meters but it always replaced them.
One Durban resident Alan Tintinger said a water meter in his block of flats was stolen in January and was yet to be replaced.
He said since the theft, the municipality had been estimating the usage which has led to his water bill doubling.
“I am the trustee for a block of flats, Dolphin Court on South Beach. Our water meter was stolen nearly three months ago and it is impossible to contact anyone in authority at the Water Department.
“One cannot get past the call centre and its blocking tactics. All you get is countless reference numbers and its meaningless ‘assuring you of our best attention at all times’. But we get massive water estimates that we cannot pay.
“They say they have no water meters and just leave it at that. This will end up in court because we will not and cannot pay. Until when are we supposed to live without a water meter – until the cows come home,” he asked.
He said since the City began estimating his bill, it had jumped from around R40 000 a month to R90 000 a month.
The Mercury has seen a copy of two of his bills, one was around R41 000 in December and jumped to R90 000 in February this year.
“We had been sending meter readings before, and instead of saying continue paying what you had been paying before our water bill just jumped, it impossible to operate under these conditions,” he said.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the situation was a disgrace and could not be ignored.
He said it was concerning that the unit could be without such a small but critical item.
“There is a big problem in eThekwini that we cannot ignore, the officials need to come clean and state what is causing all this, are they still committed to servicing the community and which is this department that is dragging its feet,” he said.
Govender said this had been persisting since last year and the City officials failed to explain.
“We have been reliably informed that there has been no stock of water meters, some of the houses have bridged connections for months on end, we have houses that are sitting with bridged connections in excess of a year which means there is no meter reading for that property and this also contributes to the massive water losses,” said Govender, adding that this was affecting many houses in the northern suburbs.
Mayisela however denied the shortage.
“I am not aware of our stores running out of meters, as far as I am aware our stores are always replenished and in the event where meters have been reported to have been stolen, our teams do go out and replace meters.
“However, we are experiencing quite a number of incidents whereby these meters are stolen and it appears to be a moving target, but we do respond. It is incorrect and misleading to say the City has run out of these meters,” said Mayisela.