eThekwini Municipality tackles non-revenue water challenges

Non-revenue water (NRW), which stands at 52.9%, is still a thorn in the side of the eThekwini Municipality.

The latest Water and Sanitation Unit state of water supply report presented at an Executive Committee (Exco) meeting on Tuesday, stated that NRW showed a decrease of 2.9% when compared to the 55.8% recorded for the previous financial year. 

The municipality stated that it was also working around the funding challenges it faced, including meter replacement projects and specialised vehicles for NRW plumbers.

On the positive side, the eThekwini NRW nerve centre responsible for analytics has been established, said Jabulani Mayise, the acting deputy head of the eThekwini Municipality Water and Sanitation (EWS) Unit. 

He said that 132 vehicles were purchased and an additional 44 vehicles will be sourced by the end of February 2026 to support the NRW programme.

Mayise said that 42 plumbers, split into two groups, have been assigned to all eThekwini regions as part of NRW initiatives. 

“Due to illegal activities that emanated from the deployment of ward-based plumbers, the city has changed the approach this year,” he said. 

One group is assigned to reservoirs with high physical losses to ensure that when the initiative is complete, the reservoir stabilises.

The second group of NRW plumbers are assigned to attend to ward councillor escalations and where zones have increased statistics in reported leaks.

In relation to water leaks, Mayise said the number of repairs backlog has been reduced from 1,010 (15 August 2025) to 221 on November 24. The municipality has also installed approximately 100,000 restrictors citywide.

“Water operations teams are currently busy with field investigations to identify zones with high losses so that further interventions can be implemented,” he said. 

Mayise said that the insourcing of plumbers was under way, with four water operation artisan plumbers employed since August 2025 and the additional recruitment of 44 plumbers under way. 

“The practical assessment of 44 artisan plumbers was done in August 2025. Interviews were undertaken in September and October. The file with the recommended candidates is currently being circulated in municipal departments for signatures,” he said. 

Mayise said that in certain areas, they were faced with challenges with repairing leaks timeously because of shift work.

His department assigned plumbers between 7am to 4pm, which was considered peak times. A second shift operated between 2pm and 10pm. Mayise said the problematic shift was 10pm to 6am. 

“The night shift lacked proper supervision, leading to a lack of productivity among plumbers. That is why the numbers were reduced temporarily,” he said.

zainul.dawood@inlco.za