Water Wheel Jan/Feb 2025: Water Revenue

Abstract

Almost Tuscan, a tower looms above double doors, windows framed by tall columns, filling a wall from floor to ceiling. Gables break the lines on a tiled roof, with eaves kicking up at their ends. Is that a bit of Bali sneaking into the design mix? They’re a familiar sight on the fringes of our cities and towns, on hillsides in the former homelands: big flashy houses, often worth millions and sometimes built beside modest, even crude dwellings. Simon Scruton, deputy head of the eThekwini metro’s water and sanitation unit, calls them “Mzinyathi mansions” – a reference to an area inland of Inanda, north-west of central Durban, where the countryside is fast giving way to the city. Understanding why funds for the delivery of services in eThekwini are so stretched might start with these grandiose homes. Indeed, their location in places like Mzinyathi go to the heart of a multibillion-rand problem facing most municipalities in South Africa: how do we get the well-off to make a fair contribution to the cost of providing common services?

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