A minibus taxi plunged into a sinkhole on Earl Haig Road in Morningside Durban after a water pipe burst beneath the road, testament to poor service delivery. [Picture: EFF Cllr. Themba Mvubu/Facebook]
The state of service delivery in the once-popular coastal city of Durban is in disarray. Such is the condition of ailing infrastructure that irate residents are pleading with authorities to intervene, but to no avail.
Speaking in an interview on Salaamedia, Ward 27 (Morningside) residents George Koster and Amina Dawood painted a picture of neglect and almost zero accountability. They spoke of frequent pipe bursts, disruption of water and electricity supply and deteriorating roads.
In 2020, the city was battered by successive waves of Covid-19 regulations which took a knock to tourism revenue. In 2021, it faced the might of violent looters when the July unrest struck and devastating floods only added to its woes in April 2022.
“More than this being a complaint, it’s actually heightening the awareness around us that this is not a problem that is exclusive to Morningside but it is all over eThekwini,” said Dawood.
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Neglect
Koster spoke of a park in the Morningside area which had been invaded by vagrants and loiterers. He said an organised group of people played soccer at improper hours, inconveniencing residents and disregarding noise by-laws.
“It is in a shocking state,” he said, adding that the park was “really destroyed, and it’s been taken over as a soccer stadium. It goes on all hours of the night. We can’t even approach them as our lives are in danger.”
But Dawood had more to highlight. She said a recent pipe burst underneath Earl Haig Road had caused a sinkhole that sucked in a whole minibus taxi. Not much has been done in terms of repairs, she said.
“This goes further than that. A few weeks ago, there was a taxi that was stuck in the sinkhole. It was all over the media. That sinkhole has not been fixed. We’ve reached out to the councillor, the roads department [and] multiple departments.”
Furthermore, Dawood said, “We have issues with water daily. We even have a situation at the moment where a pipe on the main road was fixed over the weekend, only because we had called in newspapers to see what was going on.”
She said the local ward councillor, Ernest Smith, was out of sight and placed the blame on those higher up whenever residents reached out. Smith, however, is quoted by IOL as saying he was prevented from voicing service delivery concerns in a meeting on May 5. The city is in dire straits as it faces the aftermath of several tragedies and the repercussions of years of neglect.
