Joburg Water manager apologises to city residents for 10-day water outage
Johannesburg Water Electromechanical Manager, Gugulethu Quma, has apologised to the city residents after they experienced water outages for 10 days now, but promised a speedy resolution to the crisis.
"We understand and apologise for the inconvenience. Although the recovery is a bit slow, we are attending to the matter," he said.
Quma addressed the media during a tour of the Sandton Water System on Tuesday. The briefing follows a backdrop of the recent water supply problems in the city, leaving thousands of communities without water.
It is rumoured that residents were threatening to protest if the issue was not resolved.
This is after taps in most of the suburbs and townships in Johannesburg were left dry since last week.
Quma offered words of hope to the residents, saying that some of the affected reservoirs were recovering.
The Sandton System consists of five reservoir complexes comprising the Illovo and Bryanston reservoirs and towers, the Linbro Park, Marlboro, and Morningside reservoirs.
Linbro Park and Marlboro are direct feeds, supplying water to the majority of Region E, including Alexandra, Wynberg, Sandton, Lombardy East and Houghton.
The five complexes are just some of Johannesburg Water’s 129 reservoirs and water towers which make up the entity’s infrastructure assets, helping it supply the 1.6 billion litres of potable water per day, which is procured from its bulk supplier, Rand Water.
In a statement, the entity updated that the Soweto System had recovered and was supplying fairly to normal. It, however, indicated that Protea Glen and Zondi systems were still affected by high demand.
The Linden 1, Linden 2 and Blairgowrie System remain critically low to empty, following the Eikenhof power outage experienced by City Power.
In the Waterval and White Ridge System, which includes Randburg and Roodepoort, the entity said some of the reservoirs in this system are supplying fairly to normal.
There are slight improvements on Hursthill 2, however, both reservoirs remain critically low and poor pressure can still be expected in certain parts.
Water tankers are currently providing water to affected areas. Johannesburg Water said it would continue to monitor all affected systems.
kamogelo.moichela@inl.co.za
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