A press conference was held at Rand Water’s Central Depot on Monday afternoon.
Representatives from Rand Water, Johannesburg Water, City Power and the metro presented the meeting, hoping to shed some clarity on the on-going water crisis.
Louise Pieters, from City Power, explained to journalists in attendance how the installation of a new stand-by transformer would help to ensure that a crisis like this would not happen in the future.
The installation should take place within the next 14 days.
“When the transformer is installed and fully operational we shouldn’t experience any problems in electrical supply as we have now,” she said.
The next speaker was Lungile Dlamini the managing director of Johannessburg Water.
He explained that the water crisis was not isolated to one area but rather was a widespread situation that all the representatives’ departments had attempted to monitor and control.
Dlamini went on to explain the difficulty faced in filling the now depleted reservoirs, “When the output is almost as high as the input it becomes increasingly difficult to fill the reservoirs.”
The reservoirs cannot be shut down completely, this means that consumers can still access the water continuously making it increasingly difficult to normalise the water distribution.
Phil Mashoko was next to take to the floor.
He explained that the metro originally believed that the low water pressure was due to the normal increase in water demand, associated with the change of season.
However, the situation changed when the water began to completely disappear in suburbs in the metro.
“Water has been restored to most suburbs.
“With our main focus resting on areas such as Primrose and Sunnyridge in Germiston and areas of Bedfordview.”
“As the metro we are trying our best to manage the on-going crisis,” said Mashoko.
“Our plan forward is to balance the water distribution throughout the metro to try and avoid any one suburb being left without water.”
Before opening the floor to journalists chief operations officer of Rand Water Sipho Mosai informed those in attendance that Eskom had just informed him that power had been restored to all reservoirs, as some had since been affected by cable theft.
“This means that we are ready to function at full capacity,” said Mosai.
The panel of representatives jointly agreed that no time frame could be given for the complete normalisation of the water grid.
All departments continue to monitor the situation, with promises of a calculated time being tabled.
At this moment it is unclear as to when residents can expect their water supply to be restored.
did anyone think to ask them why the metro’s sprinklers are still on daily? No.
To whom it concern,
When you don’t have water for 4 full days and you driving past a truck with 2 tankers on unsupervised and the valve is opened and the water is pouring out of it running down the street and you don’t even have water to take a bath, I must say it is quit disturbing!
This happened this evening at the water reservoir in Windsor street, Sunnyridge, Primrose.
I wish I could take a video or photos of this!
Just though you should know!
Regards,
Mrs. Van Niekerk
My daughter left South Africa with my three Grandchildren to make a life for themselves in Australia 4 years ago and as I have seen things in South Africa deteriorate, I can only be grateful that they have successfully set up a new home in a country with water and electricity, schools with quality education they can afford and hospitals that function. She actually has a great General Practitioner for my Grandkids because she comes from SOUTH AFRICA too.
5 (FIVE) FULL DAYS AND NIGHTS WITHOUT WATER! When my son did his honours (Chartered Accountant) the tax Department Head of the university told them (2 years ago) that if basic services such as electricity, water, roads, education, medical, etc. are not solved in 3 years – “take your degrees and get out of the country” as by then the country has reached the point of NO RETURN! I guess it took only 2 years to get to that point. No wonder our bright, educated citizens are leaving South Africa and taking with them all the expertise and knowledge, contributing to the success of their new countries of residence. Our municipalities cannot even provide a basic service of WATER which is the most important component for any living creature to survive. We had it all and lost it due to corruption and crime!