Service delivery to leadership responsibility were some of the issues that readers texted us about via WhatsApp

Chatterbox: August 26

eThekwini Municipality is wasting a lot of money “repairing” old water pipes. On our street, Crown Eagle Place, Kloof, they repair the same pipe at least twice a month, sometimes more.

The pipe is aged and needs complete replacement. I see the same thing happening on Campbell Road in New Germany, near 26 Campbell Road. That pipe has been repaired about 3 or 4 times in August. It is absolutely ridiculous. | Mzamo

I am writing as a serving eThekwini Councillor, the situation on Blundell Road, is a perfect example. This road has been dug up multiple times in recent months by the Water department to fix the same historic leaks. Here is the simple question every resident is asking, and that I am asking internally, The road is already dug up. Why don’t they just replace the old, broken pipes once and for all? The answer is not a technical one.

It is a failure of management, planning, and budgeting. Different departments work in complete silos, spending public money to do the same job over and over again. This is not just an inconvenience; it is financial malpractice. We are talking about millions of Rand in duplicated costs, labour, traffic management, and reinstatement all charged to the ratepayer. This is happening all over eThekwini, from Warwick Junction to Umlazi, and it is a primary reason for delayed service delivery and frustrated residents. I am raising this internally, but the system is broken. Public awareness is a tool left to force change. | Councillor Jay Singh

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Further to the discovery that water is overbilled, so is electricity accounts. They are all having consumption metres which are hardly read so that the ratepayers pay according to their actual consumption and not based on average as they say which hardly refunds any consumer for over estimation even for periods where there is hardly any person in the house. Why? | Gedion Vunda

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A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE INDEED..HOPE WE HAD MORE LEADERS LIKE MISS PRIVI MAKHAN..GOD BLESS HER. | Sylvia

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