DURBAN - Water supply remains a major problem in the Umkhanyakude District Municipality.
Officials say growing demand is stretching already strained infrastructure.
Mayor Siphile Mdaka says that there's investment in new treatment plants, upgrades, and connections.
But he says rapid population growth is making it very difficult to keep up.
"It's a challenge for a number of reasons, a lot of work has been done in terms of building new plants, upgrading plants, connection and so forth, but water is a moving target. In the 2011 cencus, we were 625,000 in the district. In the census 2022, that number has grown to almost 738,000. So, it's a moving target."
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Mdaka said the municipality has put in place concrete deadlines to resolve the problem going forward.
"We are working with the National Department of Water and Sanitation to bring this issue of water to its end. Currently, there is massive work that we are doing in terms of building new plants and the reticulation and the extension of lines so that we can reach even areas where we have not been able to do over the period of time," he added.