Johannesburg residents face continued water supply disruptions as Mayor Dada Morero pledges full restoration within seven days.
Amid mounting public criticism and social media backlash, the city has been grappling with infrastructure challenges while Rand Water has warned of possible system collapse.
Morero addressed the public on Friday outside Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station in the southern part of the city, following accusations that he had been absent throughout the ongoing water crisis.
He said in the meantime, Johannesburg Water has committed to try to increase the number of water tankers in the affected areas.
”Now you see the reservoirs starting to fill up, a few areas already have water back. But we are now committing ourselves to the residents of Johannesburg that in the next seven days, everyone will have water,” Morero promised.
He blamed the water shortages on power cuts experienced by Joburg’s City Power and eMfuleni Local Municipality, which supply electricity to the Eikenhof pump station.
Morero assured residents that water would be restored in the entire City of Johannesburg within seven days.
The teams were hard at work to ensure that they dealt with issues that involved reservoirs and pumps, he said.
”I would like to apologise to the residents of Johannesburg, it was unexpected; it was a power failure,” Morero explained.
But the mayor’s apology was not accepted by many residents, some of whom took to social media to vent. Experts also questioned why the reservoirs were allowed to run low, precipitating a serious crisis such as the current one running for weeks in case of a power cut or some other emergency.
Professor Mike Muller, from Wits University, explained the cause of the latest crisis in the Johannesburg area, noting that the reservoirs were never designed to supply water daily but to act as reserves.
"The reason those reservoirs are there is not to provide water every day. It's a reserve in case something goes wrong. Those reservoirs should be kept pretty full most of the time" he said speaking on eNCA.
He added that somebody needed to explain why the reservoirs spread around the City were allowed to go down to the bottom when they should be "operating 60-70-80% most of the time".
But Morero urged Joburg residents to be patient even though he said he understood it is a difficult period because people cannot stay days without water.
”It’s quite difficult and painful but we want to urge residents that we are doing everything we can to provide water tankers to ease the pressure as well,” Morero said.
He said the municipality was also looking into future investments to ensure that the tripping of power and power failures are dealt with immediately.
Meanwhile, water interruptions continued in other parts of Gauteng, with Rand Water’s Lethabo Raw Water Pumping Station experiencing a power outage in the early hours of Sunday. As a result, Rand Water confirmed that no water was being pumped at the Vereeniging Water Purification Plant."
“Eskom's team was dispatched to the site, where they identified the damaged insulators and restored power. Although power has been restored, Rand Water will need several hours to resume pumping at full capacity at Amanzimtoti, Eikenhof and Zwartkopjes stations.”
The entity’s spokesperson, Makenosi Maroo, said this incident would lead to water supply interruptions affecting customers served by the VVS system (Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark, and Sasolburg), as well as those served by the Forest Hill, Yeoville, Benoni, and Eikenhof systems.
Rand Water has also warned that if consumers do not change patterns of consumption, its system will collapse.
Maroo said they were trying to protect the integrity of its system and could be forced to introduce restrictions to the municipalities it supplies.
“At the moment, we are giving the three metros (Tshwane, Joburg and Ekurhuleni) an opportunity to introduce levels (of water restrictions) from their side, to ensure that there are interventions so that we manage the consumption,” she explained.
The City of Joburg is still under level one water restrictions and Johannesburg Water has been implementing a water supply reduction since November last year.
Maroo said Rand Water reservoirs have dropped significantly to between 30% and 40% and that in some areas, they were at 20% but assured communities that they would not go lower than that.
Many residents took to social media to express their dissatisfaction with the mayor’s apology, with some stating they had been without water for three weeks.
@mbuso93151 said “It's the end of the 3rd week with no water in Kenilworth. No water bowser in my area and the time frame to and from work doesn't allow me to get water. We a in a dire situation.”
“Please let me know if @JHBWater will be paying my next hospital visit due to me getting a possible infection after I've just been released from hospital and cannot take care of myself DUE TO NO WATER!,” said @nicol3tt3000.
“After 21 days without water! This is a useless excuse! So the mayor is telling us that rand water and Johannesburg water don't have generators for backup,” said @salvamuhinda.
“The mayor and everyone from JHB Water should be arrested. We need NEW employees and leaders who are not corrupt. How much longer are we supposed to suffer,” said nfpandor.
“There is no planning to resolve this issue of taking very long to recover the system. They supposed to give priority to those reservoirs which are historically struggling to recover then the system won't take very long to recover,” said @immi879415.
“#DadaMorero @Rand_Water Please make time to visit Pimville Zone 1 to see the water crisis we are facing. Most water hydrants are leaking, and the pressure is too low, causing Zone 1 to have no water when the reservoir is opened,” said @paul_maphotop.
“He must ask where the water tankers are for those affected by the outage at the Eiknhof pump. He must also ask why the reservoirs are not recovering despite us being told the pump is at full flow???!,” said @HunsRNotGudPpl.
The Star