Question NW1441 to the President of the Republic

Reply:

The Presidential eThekwini Working Group has made significant progress against its priorities:

• accelerating eThekwini’s Water Turnaround Strategy, approved by the City Council in 2023;
• positioning eThekwini as an investment and tourism hub to boost the local economy and create jobs; and,
• improving service delivery, including road infrastructure maintenance and enhancing public safety.

The following has been achieved across focal areas:

Water and Sanitation

• Finalising water supply agreements for the Upper Mkhomazi Water Project, which will address eThekwini’s medium- to short-term water supply needs.
• Launching the ‘Water Secure eThekwini’ programme, a multistakeholder initiative aimed at reducing water consumption from 270 litres to under 220 litres per person per day.
• Transferring management of ten of the largest wastewater treatment works in eThekwini to uMngeni-uThukela Water, improving effluent compliance from 49% to 68% by the end of 2024.
• Reducing non-revenue water from 58% to 53% in 2024 through infrastructure refurbishment and rehabilitation. By January 2025, it had fallen further to 51%.
• Securing additional funding for the Water Turnaround Strategy, including a R189.5 million grant from National Treasury and increasing the annual allocation to R1 billion for pipe replacement.

Safety and Security

• Enhancing safety during the holiday season through Operation Shanela, which deployed over 60,000 law enforcement officers. No significant security incidents were reported during the festive season.

Tourism and Economic Revitalisation

• Revitalising tourism through investments in the Durban beachfront, including renewing leases for the Maharani and Elangeni Hotels and reopening the Hilton Hotel, unlocking over R1 billion in tourism-related investments.
• Maintaining a successful summer holiday season, with all but two beaches remaining open. Visitors to Durban expressed satisfaction with improvements in cleanliness, tourism infrastructure and police visibility at tourist hotspots.
• Achieving a 53% improvement in business confidence between Q1 and Q4 2024, as measured by the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry,.

Governance and Financial Sustainability

• Reducing unauthorised, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure and improving audit outcomes.
• Increasing debt collection efforts, including recovering R122 million from national government departments.

Service Delivery

• According to our latest data from December 2024, the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality responded to 94% of burst pipes, 96% of sewer blockages, and 89% of customer-reported leaks within 48 hours.

While the Presidential eThekwini Working Group has made significant progress, momentum must be maintained – and in some areas increased – to tackle complex challenges such as reducing water demand and driving investment into long-term infrastructure projects. The achievements so far provide confidence that further progress can be made to improve service delivery for the people of eThekweni.