Ageing water infrastructure deters Tshwane's wish to reduce reliance on tankers

The City of Tshwane Municipality said it wants to decrease its reliance on water tankers; however, issues of ageing infrastructure continue to persist.

The municipality held a media briefing today to dispute a recent News24 article, which stated it spent R777-million on water tankers in the previous financial year.

The municipality said the figure represents procurement activity and not actual spend, as it also accounts for historical debt and unpaid invoices.

The Tshwane Municipality said its water tanker usage is consistent with the water outages in the city. As the outages increase, the municipality is forced to deploy water tankers to affected areas.

The Tshwane City Manager, Johan Mettler, said ageing infrastructure and vandalism are some of the main root causes for the outages

"The main causes were (also) the bulk supply interruptions from Rand Water, but also the contamination of the Apies River at the Hammanskraal supply area. There is also ageing distribution network which we are working on but there is only about 20% of the funding that is required per year so that then creates a growing backlog," said Mettler.

The Tshwane Municipality said, like most municipalities across the country, its infrastructure budget is far below its infrastructure needs.