JOHANNESBURG mayor Dada Morero has apologised to the city’s residents and assured them that water will be restored in all areas within seven days after weeks of no supply in some parts.
Morero was speaking on Friday outside Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station in the south of the city after he was accused of being absent throughout the current 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.
He said the teams were hard at work to ensure that they dealt with issues that involve reservoirs and pumps.
”I would like to apologise to the residents of Johannesburg, it was unexpected; it was a power failure,” Morero explained.
He also 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 tripping of power and power failures are dealt with immediately.
Rand Water has warned that if consumers do not change patterns of consumption, its system will collapse.
The entity’s spokesperson, Makenosi 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.
Johannesburg Water has indicated that demand in the municipality is quite high and that residents use more water than is licensed by Rand Water.
”We strongly urge residents to reduce water consumption wherever possible to help stabilise the system,” Johannesburg Water said on Friday.