The City of Cape Town has announced that, poorly installed water management devices (WMD) have led to illegal water connections in Du Noon municipality in South Africa. Residents in the town have made complaints on account of interrupted water supply. The City’s contractors are responsible for fitting the devices. This is with a view to restrict households’ water consumption to 350 free litres of water per day. That is 70 litres per person or less in households of five or more people.
However, there are cases where water allocation gets used up due to leaks. The result of this is people bypassing the devices in order to keep receiving water beyond their daily allocation.
According to reports from the Du Noon community advice office, residents have resorted to illegal connections. This is after the municipality tasked the contractors with solving the problem. On the other hand, the devices themselves are sometimes poorly fitted onto the water main to the house. This causes leakage at the device which is probably as a result of poorly trained plumbers.
Also read: Why Africa needs Water Metering
WMD installation
Residents also say the City did not always get consent from households to install the devices. In the case where it is given children under 18 made up the signees. According to a presentation by the City, over 161,000 such devices were installed between 2007 and 2016. The devices are meant to save water. In return for fitting the meter, the City agrees to write off all arrears of the household. Leaks are meant to be fixed before installation, free of charge, and the device is also fitted free of charge.
Research in 2009 by Caucus member organizations, recorded complaints from residents in Atlantis and Mitchell’s Plain. These residents said that after the devices were installed, they didn’t have water for months. Additionally, not all water leaks were fixed. The people were also not educated about the devices before installation.
