An eThekwini Municipality water tanker fills up at the Ottawa depot, north of Durban.
Image: Supplied
Water tankers and Non-Revenue Water (NRW) losses were the focus of an oversight committee visit on Wednesday to the Ottawa Municipal Depot, north of Durban.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in eThekwini was concerned about the recent water outages in the northern areas of Durban and the lack of visible water tankers in these communities.
Allan Peterson, eThekwini ward 11 councillor and DA whip of the Trading Services Committee, said that millions of rands have been spent on water tankers, yet some of the vehicles are inoperational at depots, some do not have valid licences and drivers are in short supply.
Yogis Govender, a DA Exco member, said they found tankers standing idle.
“We had a ward in the northern area with a five-day outage and not a tanker in sight for four days. Only on the fifth day were two tankers dispatched to one street. Several other suburbs were without water,” she said.
Peterson said there is no monitoring of the amount of water being filled into these tankers and they had witnessed water overflowing from a tanker when it was full.
“We cannot have 22 trucks standing at this depot. We raised these disputes in committee meetings regarding non-revenue water. Some of the trucks did not have license discs, while some required tyres,” he said.
In February 2026, the municipality reported that it had approximately 268 water tankers in four areas (76 in the west of the municipality; 93 in the north; 59 in the south and 40 in the central areas).
Neran Ramnath, chairperson of the Parkgate ward committee, said that residents were enduring severe hardship in the area, with intermittent water supply to their taps.
“There is a lack of communication between the municipality and the residents. There is no early warning of water outages."
He said this had been an ongoing issue for five years.
The municipality stated that water supply remains stable across most regions, and interventions are underway in areas experiencing intermittent supply.
The municipality, however, said that water demand continues to grow rapidly and is now outpacing available supply, largely due to increased urbanisation.
“The system has also recently been placed under pressure due to extreme heat conditions, which resulted in a significant increase in water demand across the City,” the municipality said.
In addition, the municipality had reduced input from its bulk water supplier, uMngeni-uThukela Water, which was experiencing algae-related challenges at Reservoir 2 of the Durban Heights Treatment Works.
The municipality said that it continues to implement several interventions to maintain supply, including reducing non-revenue water.
Water supply in the north region stands at approximately 85%. On Monday, the municipality stated that the Northern Aqueduct water supply system was recovering following an emergency shutdown to replace critical air valves, which was undertaken on Sunday, March 8.
The municipality explained that while the system is currently recovering and supply is gradually being restored, some areas are still experiencing water supply interruptions as reservoirs and pipelines refill.
Areas where water supply was restored included Trenance Park, Phoenix, Ntuzuma, Amaoti and Inanda.
“Water tankers will be deployed to provide interim relief to affected communities. The municipality strongly condemns the vandalism of water infrastructure. Residents are urged to actively safeguard municipal assets and immediately report any suspicious activity," the municipality said.
zainul.dawood@inl.co.za