By Akani Nkuna
Emergency services in eThekwini Municipality have been disrupted by technical faults affecting its emergency call lines, raising fresh concerns about residents’ access to critical services across the metro.
The municipality has acknowledged the problem and warned residents of possible difficulties when trying to access emergency assistance.
Alternative communication channels have also been provided on an interim basis while technicians work to restore full functionality.
“The municipality understands the urgency and importance of these essential services, and the public is assured that technical teams are working around the clock to identify and resolve the fault,” the municipality said in a statement on Monday.
“All available resources have been deployed to restore full functionality as quickly as possible.”
This follows an apology issued by the municipality earlier on Monday, confirming that emergency lines were down and advising residents to use alternative communication platforms until the system is stabilised.
The latest disruption echoes a similar incident last month, on 8 December 2025, when technical failures impacted the eThekwini Municipality’s data centre infrastructure at the Florence Mkhize Building in Durban.
The recurring nature of these outages has drawn criticism from political parties and civil society, with concerns that prolonged disruptions could result in loss of life and reinforce perceptions of unreliable municipal services.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in eThekwini has voiced concern over the municipality’s ability to safeguard essential services against technical failures.
DA caucus leader Thabang Mthethwa called for disciplinary action against what he described as “incompetent” officials within the IT department.
Speaking to Inside Metros, Mthethwa said accountability was necessary to instil a culture of competence and address long-standing systemic weaknesses.
“The weakness in the system is of serious concern to the DA because it negatively affects the provision of basic services. It cannot be allowed that a metro like eThekwini goes through this inconvenience every now and then,” he said.
INSIDE METROS