The eThekwini Municipality will install more than half a million water restriction devices on consumer meters over the coming weeks as pressure grows on the City to curb the massive waste of water through leaking city pipelines.

Listen to this article 5 min Listen to this article 5 min Late last year, the uMngeni-uThukela Water utility group instructed the City to chop water use by 8.4% a day for the next 12 months, citing concern from the national Department of Water and Sanitation about the growing volume of water going to waste in Durban.

However, uMngeni-uThukela confirmed last week that Durban was nowhere near achieving the necessary savings and had only reduced water consumption by about 15% of the total (8.5%) daily reduction target over the past few months.

Now Durban has announced plans to install around 550,000 restriction devices on consumer meters in the city, starting in the southern part of the city "due to the escalating demand in that region which outpaces available water supply".

Announcing the new curbs in a statement on 18 February 2025, eThekwini said the new measure was taken "as part of continuous efforts to reduce the increase in water demand and to enforce water conservation".

Similar measures were taken during the crippling 2016 drought in KwaZulu-Natal, when almost half a million restrictors were installed in metering devices across the city.

The restrictors are small metal discs with a narrow diameter...