eThekwini Water and Sanitation is a unit of the eThekwini municipality and is responsible for the provision of water and sanitation services to all customers in the municipality. We have as our core values, a customer focus, cost consciousness and a concern for the well-being of our staff.
The Unit is continually looking for new and innovative ways to provide services to our customers and has been recognised through many awards and acknowledgements.
Initiatives such as free basic water, flow limiters, the use of plastic bodied water meters, polypropylene water piping, ground tanks and semi-pressure water service levels, urine diversion toilets, anaerobic baffled reactors, the use of grey water for urban agriculture, customer services agents, condominial sewerage and a customer water debt repayment policy were first introduced to South Africa, here.
We have a co-operative research agreement with the University of Kwazulu-Natal to further this agenda.
The Unit has been able to use GIS based tools, specifically developed call center, electronic workflow and document management software to further improve service delivery.
Key priorities at present include:
Eradicating the backlog in the provision of water and sanitation services:
- The water backlog has been reduced to 15% of what it was in 1996; the sewerage backlog stands at approximately 50% of the 1996 figure.
- Reducing non-revenue water from the present level of 30%, to 25%, over the next 5 years.
- Improving our asset management systems.
- Training young graduates in engineering and retaining our skilled staff to respond to the shortage of engineers and professional skills in SA.
- Improving our performance management systems.
- Improving customer services and services payment levels, which are currently just over 90%.