Durban - Ugu District Municipality says both the Southern and Northern schemes/reservoirs are notably under performing.
This comes after the municipality noted complaints from residents about the Bhobhoyi System.
The municipality said in a statement on Monday night that both the Southern (Shelly Beach, Gamalakhe, UVongo, Margate and Ramsgates) and Northern (Protea Park, Ntweni, Seapark, Southport to Hibberdene) schemes/reservoirs were notably under performing.
“The first step taken was to close the Gamalakhe feed line for the next 48 hours to ascertain any significant changes on the system,” it said.
The municipality said teams were looking at the reasons behind this drop of reservoirs.
“Communities are requested to use water sparingly and report any visible water loss,” it said.
The municipality also confirmed that the plant was now slowly picking up.
The district has been plagued with ongoing water supply issues.
Commenting on the statement issued on the municipality’s Facebook page, a resident asked: “Is this significant considering the re-employment of the staff that were dismissed during the time of political sabotage?”
Another resident questioned why this was happening now after months without water issues.
“After four months of no water problems, suddenly there are problems again after staff were paid off,” said the resident.
“’The Mercury” reported last month that the municipality would fork out millions of rand in back-pay compensation to staff members it dismissed three years ago after the workers were reinstated following an agreement between the municipality and the labour union.
The report said a total of 119 workers in the Water Unit were to go back to work on November 1 following the agreement between the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) and the South Coast municipality.
The agreement stipulated that the workers would be paid a back-pay of 12 months and there were ongoing negotiations regarding how the issue of their pension would be settled.
While some councillors have claimed the back-pay alone could be a minimum of R34 million, the municipality and the unions decided to steer clear from estimating a figure, stating that calculations needed to be done.