Latest news with #eThekwini
The Citizen
2 days ago
- Business
- The Citizen
#BestofDurban2025: Caxton Durban announces the crème de la crème of Durban
THE votes are in, the winners are out, and yoh, the results speak volumes! The Best of Durban Readers' Choice Awards 2025 once again showed off the vibe, variety, and sheer local brilliance that make eThekwini shine. After months of piping-hot competition and voting that came in faster than a bunny chow at lunch, over 358 000 votes were dished out across nine sizzling categories. Durbanites pulled in strong, helping crown 224 top-tier businesses and service providers as the crème de la crème of the 031. From cafés that know your order before you say 'Usual, please', to mechanics who don't take you for a ride, doctors with bedside brilliance, and teachers raising the bar, Durban, you've got taste. Also read: Announcing KZN's best coffee spots Food & Drink came in flaming hot with 66 777 votes, no surprise there, followed by Professional Services, Medical, Education, and Shopping. Altogether, a whopping 5087 nominees made the cut across more than 224 sub-categories. Clearly, Durbanites know how to back their favourites. But this campaign wasn't just about likes and logos, it was about heart. With over 21 000 reader competition entries, it's clear locals care about uplifting the legends who keep our city ticking. These are the real MVPs — the hairstylist who's never had a bad hair day, the teacher always chalking up wins, or the cashier who greets you like family. Every winner and finalist is a standing ovation for hard work, heart, and hustle. The full results are live across our Caxton Durban titles; Northglen News, Berea Mail, Highway Mail, Queensburgh News — and all over our socials. So big up to everyone who voted, supported, or made the list. Durban's got talent, heart and hustle. We can't wait to see these champs shine even brighter next year. From all at Caxton Local Media Durban we say, thank you, dankie, ngiyabonga. To view the winners click here. For more from the Highway Mail, follow us on Facebook , X and Instagram. You can also check out our videos on our YouTube channel or follow us on TikTok. Click to subscribe to our newsletter here
Daily Maverick
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
eThekwini taken to court for ‘possum' stance on Durban beach sewage crisis
Durban municipal leaders will come under renewed legal pressure this week to devise a more ambitious and 'credible' action plan to resolve a long-standing sewage management crisis that has led to widespread pollution of local rivers and repeated closures of tourist beaches. The civil court case over eThekwini's sewage management crisis, to be heard over two days in the Durban High Court from 24 to 25 July, is the culmination of separate legal actions brought by the DA and ActionSA more than two years ago. The two party actions have now been joined into a single case to determine whether the City has responded reasonably to resolve the crisis and to also consider new measures, including the appointment of an independent administrator to supervise the City's wastewater management and remediation plans. While the City has largely blamed the crisis on the devastating flood events of April and May 2022 and limited budgets to repair the damage, the DA argues that the crisis is the direct result of years of failure and neglect in maintaining and upgrading infrastructure to cope with sewage flows generated by nearly four million city residents. In heads of argument prepared by legal counsel Max du Plessis SC, Toni Palmer and Ruchir Naidoo, the DA alleges that the city leadership is 'playing possum' and resorted to 'opportunistic' excuses by denying culpability for the crisis. Noting that the city's Water and Sanitation department had been presented with United Nations awards in 2007 and 2011 for 'world-class' sanitation and service delivery, the DA counsel recalled that problems were evident before the floods. For example, the City tried to blame water hyacinth for beach closures in December 2021, when the true reason was high levels of E. coli sewage bacteria being pumped into the Umgeni River from dysfunctional sewage treatment works. 'The question eThekwini studiously avoids in explaining its position in these proceedings is what happened between 2007 and now, to take this award-winning system to its present state? Plainly the infrastructure did not age or break overnight. 'Had eThekwini intended seriously to dispute the averment that it had underprioritised its wastewater infrastructure in the past decade, it would have done so by disclosing the amounts, its plans and confirming the adequacy of its budgetary allocations during this time. eThekwini's answering affidavit is entirely mum on this.' But the City's counsel charge that the DA case is big on complaints but short on practical solutions. They say the party has deliberately downplayed relevant factors such as the unprecedented floods and major financial constraints facing the city. 'The impact of the floods has been so significant that the eThekwini Municipality will now have to effectively rebuild damaged and destroyed infrastructure.' The City further argues that it is being asked to 'achieve the impossible', also indicating that full rehabilitation of sewage infrastructure could extend over 25 years. Hastening the rehabilitation timeline would require diverting funds from other priorities such as housing, health or electricity. 'How much money and manpower can legitimately be moved away from housing to the (sewage) repair infrastructure? Does a new clinic get placed on hold until the repair work is undertaken. These are questions that the Democratic Alliance simply ignores…' But the DA denies this, stating: 'This case is about finding practical ways to end the sewerage crisis, while respecting that eThekwini, while floundering and excuse-prone, is nonetheless the local executive authority.' In the absence of political will and the City's failure to develop 'meaningful plans' to resolve the problems, court intervention was needed to craft a legal solution. 'This is relief which is forward-looking, meaningful and within this Court's powers to grant in order to resolve the true dispute between the parties: that is, securing compliance with environmental legislation in the interests of eThekwini residents and visitors and putting an end to continuing violation of human rights in contravention of the Constitution. 'The DA has not approached the Court to tell eThekwini that it knows better how to resolve the problem. It has not sought to dictate to eThekwini how it should prioritise spending of public money. It has not sought to dictate to eThekwini how to comply with the law. It has not sought to force a plan upon eThekwini, or bind its hands in developing such a plan.' Rather, it was seeking to ensure that eThekwini produced a 'proper' action plan rather than elastic wish-lists. 'The (current eThekwini action plan) is not a plan at all, but an aspirational wish-list, the timelines for which are not deadlines, but mere suggestions, which will be revised and pushed back in order to accommodate them being ongoingly missed by eThekwini.' The party further says that eThekwini strongly opposed any court supervision. 'Instead, it remains stuck in history, blaming its ageing infrastructure and limited budget as reasons to excuse it from complying with its constitutional and legal obligations… The law has been violated by the sewerage crisis for which eThekwini is responsible, and this must be recognised and declared by the Court.' Speaking ahead of the court case, DA provincial spokesperson Dean Macpherson said his party had offered to drop the case and reach an out-of-court settlement, but this had been refused. Therefore, his party had no alternative but to approach the courts because neither the provincial or national government had demonstrated a willingness to compel eThekwini to rectify the problems. 'We get no victory from dragging eThekwini and government departments to court to do their jobs and it should not be up to a political party to do this.' In heads of argument prepared by advocates Vinay Naidoo SC, Immanuel Veerasamy and Minikazi Mtati, the City estimates that it will cost R4.5-billion to rehabilitate wastewater treatment infrastructure and a further R1.6-billion to maintain this network thereafter. City officials argue that it is also unaffordable to protect all sewage pump stations from vandals and copper wire thieves as it would cost R900-million per year to provide on-site security guards at all 273 pump stations in the city. As a result, on-site security was only provided at certain 'higher risk' stations. 'The Democratic Alliance would have the court focus on water and sanitation obligations imposed on the municipality to the exclusion of all other obligations… A full reading of the eThekwini Municipality's answering affidavit and the DA's complaints demonstrates that the problems are being attended to, just not with the expediency which the DA would want the municipality to do.' DM
Mail & Guardian
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Mail & Guardian
Flood damage: An act of God or governance failure?
Car pool: When Toyota's vehicle assembly plant in Durban flooded in 2022, the car maker's insurer took the municipality to court. Photo: File Everyone remembers April 2022, when torrential rains pummelled KwaZulu-Natal and floodwaters ravaged homes, roads and factories. Lives were lost, families were displaced and infrastructure was destroyed. And although every part of the province bore the weight of that disaster, one story in particular has found its way into court. Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM), has a vehicle assembly plant situated in Prospecton, Durban. It had to shut down operations after the factory was submerged during the flooding. The production lines came to a grinding halt. Pictures circulated on social media of thousands of brand-new vehicles drowning at the plant. They were written off before they even had a chance to hit the showroom floor. The damage was extensive, costs were astronomical and timelines for recovery, like so many things in this country, were uncertain. TSAM's insurer has now taken the matter to court, not against Toyota, but against eThekwini metropolitan municipality. The company said in court papers that the flooding and subsequent damages were exacerbated by the city's failure to maintain a key piece of public infrastructure: the Umlaas Canal. The canal was built decades ago to divert the uMlazi River around the industrial zone of Prospecton. According to court papers, the insurer contends that the canal, which is owned by Transnet but managed and maintained in conjunction with the department of transport and eThekwini municipality, had deteriorated to the point of failure. They argue that its structural integrity was so compromised that it could not handle the sheer volume of stormwater during the April floods. And that had the infrastructure been properly maintained, the damage would have been far less severe. Now, whether you agree with that line of reasoning or not, it raises a much bigger question that we should all be asking: when infrastructure fails and the consequences are devastating, who is responsible? Here in South Africa, we are immune to poor service delivery. We normalise the dysfunction of paying for taxes but not receiving adequate, standard services in exchange. The idea of infrastructure collapse has become so familiar that it's practically baked into our national psyche. Potholes are the size of bathtubs (some literally with trees growing in them). Water leaks persist for weeks and remain unrepaired, despite numerous community complaints made through official channels. Substations that blow up have not been maintained for decades. We shake our heads, mutter something about service delivery, and move on. Until something big breaks and suddenly, it's not just about inconvenience anymore. It's about livelihoods. It's about public safety. It's about people losing their jobs, assets and sometimes even their lives. So when a flood rolls through Durban and knocks out one of the biggest vehicle assembly plants in the southern hemisphere, we have to ask, was it really just an 'act of God'? Or was it a long-ignored systems failure, the kind that we have come to expect and accept? One of my followers offered an informed perspective that deserves space in this conversation and brings some balance to the argument. According to him, and a report by Aecom (Toyota's engineers), eThekwini hasn't been idle. Since the 2017 floods, it has reportedly worked with Toyota to implement several mitigation measures: installing a new outfall at Clark Road, upgrading the Prospecton Road canal and developing an attenuation facility upstream. Toyota has also enhanced its internal stormwater systems, all with the aim of managing flood risks well beyond standard design thresholds. Aecom estimates the 2022 flood was a one-in-200-year event, significantly more severe than the historic 1987 flood. If that's accurate, then perhaps this wasn't purely a failure of infrastructure maintenance, but rather a climate event that overwhelmed even above-standard defences. The same reader raised another important point: litigation might do more harm than good. The Dutch report on damages in the Prospecton area put the figure at a staggering R75 billion. In his view, that kind of crisis demands collaboration and consolidated funding, not courtrooms and high legal costs. Litigation, he argues, divides the very stakeholders who should be working together. Can you hold a municipality accountable for systemic failure, without undermining the partnerships that are needed to prevent future ones? There have been numerous instances in South Africa where maintenance funds are unaccounted for, and the organisation responsible remains unaccountable. Perhaps that's why we jump to the conclusion that eThekwini has failed us. This court case raises a real question: can a municipality be held liable for damages when its failure to maintain public infrastructure leads to a private sector loss? And if the metro loses this case, what precedent will it set for other private businesses whose operations were affected? I believe this will not be an easy case to prove. Municipalities will almost always argue that they don't have the funds, the personnel or the resources to do everything that needs to be done. If you're a business, and especially if you're a business investing in fixed assets such as factories, you operate under the assumption that the state will maintain basic infrastructure. That's not a luxury. It's the bare minimum. It's part of the social contract that underpins why we pay rates and taxes. In a province that is prone to flooding, business and government should constantly be working together to prevent infrastructure failures. This is a case worth hearing. Because if we start drawing legal lines around what constitutes negligence when it comes to public infrastructure, maybe it will shift the conversation away from vague, hand-wringing frustration and into the realm of consequences. Here's the part that really gets to me when it comes to infrastructure failures caused by government negligence: the fact that so many people read about these kinds of things and barely flinch. It seems that the norm for South Africans is to accept what is. Not because they don't care, but because they've stopped expecting better. There is a kind of quiet resignation that has set in when it comes to local government, especially in provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal, where service delivery failures have become the norm rather than the exception. It's almost as though people have internalised the dysfunction. 'That's just how it is,' they say. 'You can't fight a metro.' So they fix things themselves. Or they wait. Or they leave. They move to metros where things work better. Cape Town. George. The Garden Route. Suddenly, a flood in Durban isn't just a disaster, it becomes part of a trend. A reason to relocate. A push factor or a final straw in a long list of reasons people and capital are fleeing underperforming municipalities. And this is where the real long-term damage begins. When people leave a metro, they don't just take their frustrations with them. They take their tax contributions. Their rates. Their investments. Their businesses. Their energy. Their participation. They leave behind a shrinking municipal budget, fewer resources and a growing hole in the very capacity that was meant to fix the problem in the first place. And on the flip side? The metros that are functioning, or at least doing a passable job, are now buckling under the pressure of inward migration. Your roads are more congested. Your schools are fuller. Your hospitals have longer queues. And your infrastructure, which might have been designed for a population of a million, is now trying to support 1.5 million or more. It's a vicious cycle. One that affects everyone, not just the people who made the move. So although it's easy to say 'vote with your feet', we need to ask what kind of long-term structural consequences that has for our cities, our budgets and our national cohesion. I would like to see more municipalities being challenged. I want legal precedents that remind us that governance comes with responsibility. That neglect has a cost. That service delivery isn't optional. Not just outrage on X. Not just another audit report. Real legal and financial accountability. But more than that, I want us as citizens, residents, ratepayers and business owners to start asking better questions. To demand better answers. And to stop accepting mediocrity as the default setting for how this country is run. Yes, things are hard, we are resilient and budgets are tight. But we need to stop accepting those excuses as explanations for why things never improve. What happened at Toyota in Durban wasn't just a flood. It was a failure. A systems failure. And perhaps a governance failure. It could serve as a reminder that we are not powerless. That accountability doesn't begin and end at the ballot box. That municipalities exist to serve us, not the other way around. And that if we don't start holding them to a higher standard, we will be repeating this cycle of damage, disappointment, and decay. So the next time a pipe bursts or a streetlight stays broken for six months, don't just shrug. Ask the hard questions. Demand the repair. File the complaint. Write the letter. And, above all, stay on top of it. Because if we don't hold our metros accountable, who will? Ask Ash examines South Africa's property, architecture and living spaces. Continue the conversation with her on email (
The Herald
3 days ago
- General
- The Herald
Burning candle caused Durban fire
He said officials met the grieving families of Mbango and Zulu. It has been reported the woman was looking after her friend's son, Zulu, but was locked in the shack at the time of the fire. 'At this stage our focus is to ensure extended families in Mount Frere and Umzimkhulu are properly informed about the tragedy. Sadly, Ms Nonhle Mbango buried her father weeks ago.' He said residents at the settlement were always affected by fires and natural disasters such as floods. 'Critically, we remain worried about the fact that residents who originally lived there were relocated to the newly built houses in Waterloo and double-storey homes just across Kennedy Road. 'In our meeting with the minister last week with eThekwini mayor Cyril Xaba we agreed on the need to enforce the bylaws. This will help to prevent people from reoccupying or renting shacks. 'Notwithstanding these issues, we understand that people are moving to eThekwini and other secondary cities in search of socioeconomic opportunities,' Duma said. TimesLIVE
The Citizen
4 days ago
- The Citizen
2 killed as deadly fire rips through Durban informal settlement
A devastating fire tore through Durban's Kennedy Road informal settlement in the early hours of Saturday, claiming the lives of a woman in her 30s and a one-year-old baby. The Witness reports that the deadly blaze comes barely a month after another inferno destroyed 40 shacks in the same settlement. At this stage, the cause of the fire that destroyed over 100 shacks remains unknown. Resident and community leader Vusi Doncabe said he was woken up by the noise from the neighbours and when he walked out to check what was happening, the fire was too close to his own shack to save his belongings. 'I'm left with nothing. I could not throw out any of my belongings because the fire was too close to my shack when I woke up,' said Doncabe. I was in a state of panic and in fact everyone was in that state because the fire was uncontrollable. When the fire fighters and emergency services arrived, the blaze had done the damage. He said the one-year-old baby belonged to another woman who had left her in the care of the friend for the night. 'People are saying the baby was left with the friend who died in the same shack they were sleeping in. It is not clear where the baby's mother was,' he said. Relief organisation, Gift of the Givers said they had responded and provided assistance to the affected residents. Community liaison officer Bilaal Jeewa said about 120 people, including children were left homeless. He said in the interim they provided the victims with beanies and blankets, and meals will be provided. 'The eThekwini disaster management is doing the assessment, and once all is done, we will see what further assistance we can provide for the affected families. Obviously other NGOs will also lend a hand to assist the affected.' 'We estimate about 80 to 100 shacks have burnt down. Thus far, we have provided the people with teabags, bread, peanut butter, the beanies etc, because it was cold. It was raining but now it's cold,' said Jeewa. Breaking news at your fingertips… Follow Caxton Network News on Facebook and join our WhatsApp channel. Nuus wat saakmaak. Volg Caxton Netwerk-nuus op Facebook en sluit aan by ons WhatsApp-kanaal. Read original story on At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
