Motorists splash through pools of raw sewage water oozing on Margaret Mncadi, formerly known as Victori Embankment in Durban on Tuesday. The broken sewrage has been leaking raw sewage water for a couple of weeks in the area, creating a foul smell and congestion, with motorists trying to navigate the smelly water Picture: Doctor Ngcobo/Independent Newspapers
Image: Doctor Ngcobo
So currently, eThekwini, is a municipality that boasts that they intend to become one of the most caring cities, yet they have absolutely no idea of how to control sewerage infrastructure.
The eThekwini CBD along the Esplanade has had sewerage bubbling up from below and running in the road for days, down the stormwater drains and into the harbour.
Coincidently, the Winklspruit River has very similar problems.
So too Athlone.
And so it goes on. Until it flows into council chambers, the city’s management could not care a dam.
Why has eThekwini not received an ultimatum from either the minister of health, or environmental affairs?
eThekwini are guilty of continual environmental mismanagement and is slowly killing our rivers and aquatic life.
How is it they get away with it. It’s down-right criminal, that’s what it is. | Glen Jansen Winkelspruit
I was appalled to hear that tons of stinking raw sewage is pouring into Durban Harbour day and night. This is not a new problem, but one that has been occurring for many years, as long as one can remember. Only this time, the amount of sewage pouring into the bay has reached crisis proportions.
How are the fish, crabs and other marine life to survive in this filthy, rotten, stinking polluted bay? How could we be so uncaring?
While it is understandable that the pumps will suffer mechanical failure from time to time, and that massive amounts of foreign objects, like rags, tyres and debris, clog the pipes and the ageing infrastructure cannot handle the massive amounts of sewage outflows produced by the growing urban population?
Why is the municipality always reactive and not proactive? It has a large maintenance crew. Why aren’t they maintaining the ageing infrastructure? Why wait for the pumps to break down and then, belatedly, attend to them?
The municipality also has a large environmental department with several highly paid environmental officers. Are they active in their duties or they relaxing in their offices? Are they visiting communities and schools and educating the public about environmental issues? What are they doing about the piles of rubbish dumped at informal settlements?
Look for instance the Mexican sunflower growing along the M1 and M7. They may look colourful but they are destroying our indigenous vegetation. Why isn’t the municipality getting rid of alien vegetation along our highways? Is the environment not a priority?
Is the raw sewage that has been flowing into the harbour for many years not a priority? Their fat salaries come first; the rest can wait. There’s no consequences for neglected and lethargic work. They are the protected, not the fish and crabs suffocating in the raw sewage.
Some time ago there was an organisation called Keep Durban Beautiful. Now it’s become Keep Durban Dirty!
My heart sank when I saw pictures of the raw sewage flowing into the harbour flashed across national TV. The whole nation saw how filthy Durban has become. I am disgusted. My once, beautiful bay has become a cesspool! | T Markandan Kloof
Ebrahim Essa’s latest bout of IDS – Israel Derangement Syndrome – does not disappoint regarding irony and double standards (May 20).
He bristles at Israel’s death penalty for the jihadists involved in the massacre of 1 195 Israelis on October 7, 2023. Yet incredibly, he demands proper trials for those butchers who fanatically slaughtered, dismembered and set fire to innocent, unarmed civilians.
To cap it all, he refers to the death penalty order as being imposed by the “lunatic fringe” of Israel’s leadership.
Displaying the pathetic extent of his deranged and distorted thinking, Essa regards the intended death penalty for the jihadists as “a grade of evil,” a charge he does not associate with the October 7 butchers.
By ignoring the inhuman conduct of the Hamas jihadists, Essa implicitly glorifies it. He fails to appreciate that genocide is the ultimate aim of Hamas and its jihadist cohorts.
Documents recently captured by the Israeli military show that a multi-front war against Israel was planned in 2022. October 7, 2023 was meant to be the beginning of the ‘final solution’ culminating in the total elimination of Israel.
While it is questionable whether the letters columns should reflect the tortured fulminations of Mr Essa’s mind, what is certain is that Israel is never going to be eliminated. That is God’s promise. So in that respect, there will be no relief for Mr Essa.
There will also be no relief for him because Genesis 16.4 predicted that the offspring of Ishmael “will live in hostility towards all his brothers.” That truth is perpetually manifested in the Middle East.
Your ferocious fulminations are futile, Mr Essa. | Dr Duncan du Bois Bluff
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