The Democratic Alliance welcomes and celebrates the judgement handed down by the Pietermaritzburg High Court against the eThekwini Municipality for the ongoing sewage crisis.

The DA was forced to approach the court after the Municipality showed no willingness or ability to end the sewage disaster which has repeatedly closed beaches, degraded the quality of life for residents across the city and inflicted financial harm on businesses.

The high court ruling of today compels the Municipality to implement the following steps (amongst others) to protect the public right to a safe and healthy environment.

1. Publish on a weekly basis the result of E.coli readings of all public beaches on the municipalities website, social media platforms and at public beaches.

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2. Urgently implement an action plan to conduct repairs and maintenance to sewer infrastructure and report to court in the progress made.

3. Communicate as widely as possible to the public living and working alongside beaches and rivers, on water related hazards and pollution affecting the relevant areas.

For far too long the political leadership of eThekwini have taken the public for granted and have been ignoring the scores of complaints regarding sewer overflows into our rivers and oceans.

Every attempt to secure reasonable and urgent mitigating measures form the municipality have been ignored and this left us with no other option but to force the municipality to do what it is legally obligated to do.

The DA remains committed to ensuring that the sewer crisis is completely eradicated and will continue to do every in our power to restore our city to a safe and healthy living environment.