Pretoria - Residents in some parts of Soshanguve woke up to dry taps yet again yesterday and blamed the City of Tshwane for the constant water outage.
The interruption in water supply came two days after residents were left without water on Friday.
Last month, Soshanguve residents’ interruption to water supply caught them by surprise despite the fact that Rand Water claimed to have given a 21-day notice to the municipality about possible water outages as a result of planned maintenance on its infrastructure.
Angry residents then took to the streets in Block L to air their frustration over lack of water owing to ongoing maintenance work done by Rand Water at its Haartebeeshoek reservoir.
Earlier this month residents were left without water for days after the valve to the reservoir in Block L was closed allegedly by some striking workers.
Residents took to social media to express their anger and frustration about the water outages, urging the municipality to intervene urgently.
A resident from Block WW, Nenawa Kago, said: “We understand that your people are on strike but we didn’t have electricity for almost a week, now it’s water in Soshanguve WW.”
For five days last week residents of Soshanguve Block VV, UU and WW were forced to stay in darkness owing to a prolonged power interruption.
Residents wanted to know if the City would refund them the money that went to waste in buying food that had gone bad.
The City didn’t respond to questions on how residents should go about claiming damages for the loss of groceries worth thousands of rand.
Another resident enquired: “What is happening with the water in Soshanguve Block L, water came back last night after two days and now it’s gone again this morning (yesterday)?”
On Friday, municipal spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said: ”The City is aware of certain areas within the metropole experiencing low water pressure to no water at all as of August 25. The water shortages are as a result of Rand Water’s Zuikerbosch Water Treatment Plant having suffered a power dip that resulted in the operational failure of the plant, which means it could not pump.”
He said the power dip had resulted in the depletion of Rand Water systems, which include the Zwartkopjes system, Eikenhof system, Mapleton system and Palmiet system.
“Eskom technicians have since addressed the voltage drip and all Tshwane reservoir water levels are expected to normalise soon,” he said.
DA Gauteng spokesperson on Infrastructure, MPL Nico de Jager, said: “Reservoirs that receive water from the Zuikerbosch plant, including Alexander, Berea, South Hills and the Commando systems in Joburg, as well as areas in Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, will be affected.”
He said it was unacceptable that Rand Water continued to use load shedding as an excuse for the lack of maintenance on its infrastructure.
“For a long time now, the DA has been calling on Rand Water to regularly maintain its infrastructure and put adequate security measures in place at its reservoirs and pumping stations. It cannot be that after all these years of tload shedding, Rand Water can still not provide back-up electricity at its pumping stations.”
Pretoria News