Rand water
Some Gauteng residents face double whammy of load shedding, water cuts
Rand Water said water supply will be disrupted in Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, and Tshwane for 87 hours over the weekend. At the same time, residents have been...
Rand Water said that residents in the cities of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, and Tshwane, as well as other direct customers of Rand Water would be affected by the 87-hour water outage.
Residents are being urged to use water sparingly as the work is scheduled to last for 53-hours and ending on Saturday evening.
The planned outages will affect municipalities in the Johannesburg and Tshwane areas from 5pm until Saturday, 13 August, at 10pm.
The utility completed its maintenance work at the Vereeniging water treatment plant at the weekend after implementing outages across the metro.
Environment and Infrastructure MMC Michael Sun said that Rand Water needed to conduct the maintenance but this would affect areas ranging from Auckland Park to Randburg and Westdene.
She spoke at the Water and Sanitation Department’s press conference in Pretoria to address claims by the Democratic Alliance’s Solly Msimanga that the bulk water supplier is incompetent and fails to communicate adequately and supply water tankers to affected consumers.
At the party’s water campaign launch last week, Solly Msimanga accused the utility of failing to provide water tankers to areas affected by recent water outages that were caused by maintenance of water infrastructure.
Technicians from the metro have been working to restore power at a Rand Water substation this afternoon which affected the distribution of water in the area.
Rand Water says a total power supply failure at a substation in Ekurhuleni threatens water supply in parts of the area and could affect hundreds of households.
Areas that may be affected include Garsfontein, Mooikloof, Cullinan, Mamelodi, Constantia Park, Cornwall Hill, Klapperkop, Erasmusrand and Waterkloof Ridge.
The water utility's Mapleton Booster suffered a power failure at the weekend, which affects the Vlakfontein Reservoir that supplies the City of Tswhane with water.
Organisations such as Johannesburg’s City Power and Rand Water are meant to not only provide services to residents but are also historically cash injectors in municipal coffers.
Disruptions to the city’s water supply have improved after Rand Water was forced to implement what it called load shifting, by moving water from healthy systems, to reservoirs that are struggling.
Rand Water said it made a significant improvements in the supply of water to Johannesburg suburbs that have been without water for days.
Business owners and people working from home are counting the costs of Rand Water's ongoing disruptions despite assurances.
Rand Water is appealing for patience while waiting for reservoirs to fill up two days after it finished its 54 hours maintenance project.
Rand Water said its storage facilities were 'gradually' filling up - but it warned customers who live at higher altitudes may have to wait longer before water could be pumped into their reservoirs.
The Meredale Reservoir, which supplies several reservoirs and water towers owned by Joburg Water, is being closely monitored as water levels remain low.