WRAP | Joburg Water Crisis: Mayor, utilities provide update on widespread water outage

Moonsamy:

We had 25 trucks and increased them yesterday. There are various Jojo tanks that are filled by those trucks. We have also been filling up internal tanks in certain facilities. The areas that are depleted of water are coming back.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

In addition to the water tankers, Moonsamy says they have also placed various jojo tanks in certain areas.

- Iavan Pijoos

In response to questions, Moonsamy says they have recommended that hospitals upgrade their storage capacities in the past. He says they have a dedicated pumping truck to assist hospitals.

- Iavan Pijoos

Floyd Brink:

The ageing infrastructure is more than 50 years old.

They are steel pipes. It is difficult to repair such based on the material and material available at the time. An inconvenience like this is not nice. I am apologising for the inconvenience caused.

- Ntwagaae Seleka

Charles Tlouane, City Power Group Exec: Operations and maintenance:

Eikenhof has three transformers. It is not to be load shed. We also need to mention that it gets power from Orlando via the Fordsburg substation.

When we lose the Fordsburg, Orlando line, it impacts Rand Water. It is easy to lose that line. When it is lost, everything in the south goes to a standstill.

Before it trips, we see the signs. We have been indicating to Rand Water to supply them via the Monero substation.

They are aware of it; we have been engaging. We need to build our own High Voltage yard to feed Rand Water so that when we lose Orlando, Mondeor kicks in splits of a second.

We are ready to start with the construction; we are waiting for them.

As City Power and Rand Water, we have exempted some of their sites from load shedding.

We have identified 16 to 19 sites that we are planning they form part of our IPP strategy for alternative solutions to Joburg Water.

It is a work in progress. We are aware of a particular Rand Water site in Robertsville that would be serving the area as a redundancy.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Gwamanda: The rates boycott is a political strategy to undermine an administration.

It is a politically motivated approach to undermine black leadership, to be blunt.

In as much as residents are frustrated with certain services, I am not, limiting this to the City.

The first cause of action will be to de-boycott. The municipality relies on ratepayers. You are collapsing government in its entirety. Regardless of challenges, constructive engagement and dialogue would bridge that gap.

It is a critical engagement that needs to happen. We need to come up with constructive solutions beneficial to the future of the municipality and governing of the municipality.

I reject that unconditionally. Consequence management. Administrators are inundated with the responsibilities they are facing.

Before you can impose yourself, you need to understand the level of strain they encounter.

You need to assess their failures before you can say the person doesn't deliver.

We take it seriously that is why we have established the disciplinary board to begin the process of assessing and referring officials at executive levels failing to manage their responsibility.

We believe in it. We believe in affording the opportunity to administrators and politicians. Yesterday, I chased MMC Sekwaiya away from a meeting to attend to these issues.

That is how we respond to challenges emanating sporadically. We believe fully in consequences management. An opportunity must be afforded to people before we can act.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Responding to News24's question on why he was absent, Gwamanda says he was not absent.

"It was an assumption. Residents have my direct line. They escalate issues directly to me. I am always hands-on in the role that I am supposed to play," he says.

- Iavan Pijoos

Moonsamy also conceded that there was a backlog in [fixing] water leaks, but they are trying hard to reduce it.

- Iavan Pijoos

Moonsamy conceded that they have infrastructure that is in need of upgrades. He says the demand was going up and they needed to look at initiatives on how to reduce the overall demand.

- Iavan Pijoos

Moonsamy says they have an extensive water demand strategy. We have a strategy to detect leaks. We deploy resources on the ground to isolate leaks. We are going in the right direction. Water networks depend on supply and demand. In this case, Rand Water is giving us maximum supply. Their systems are working all out. The demand for the municipality is growing higher and higher. The demand is increasing because Johannesburg is the City of opportunities. Resources have to be placed where they are needed. Demand is growing. We need to look at strategies to reduce demand, including repairs.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Responding to questions, Moonsamy says, "These circumstances were out of our control". He says certain things are naturally caused incidents. He says water tankers are only deployed to critical areas. When it comes to loadshedding, he says areas like Brixton are exempted.

- Iavan Pijoos

Moonsamy says this morning there have been some improvements in the Randburg system. The system fed by the Horizon tower is starting to get water. Linden and Blairgowrie are interconnected—the system on the highest point of the supply point. You need high pressure to feed the two systems. The Honeydew has been relatively stable.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Moonsamy says the Randburg system was "severely hit". It was relatively low. He says the Helderkruin reservoir was opened after being closed.

- Iavan Pijoos

Moonsamy says Parktown 2 is sitting at 80%. Berea is sitting at 20% - it is critically low.

Some portions of Soweto were affected by the shutdown. Crown Gardens is at 77%. The Eagles Nest at 46%. Soweto systems are showing improvements.

The Sandton system was not affected. There was confusion about why it was not affected. Moonsamy says it was on a planned shutdown, which was planned two weeks ago. Did a partial scope of the work during the shutdown, and then reduced the scope and opened up water. It is showing some improvement.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Logan Moonsamy, from Joburg Water, says the Commando system has seen some improvements. Crosby reservoir is sitting at 70%. Brixton Trower is sitting at 31% and is feeding as normal. South Hills system has been enjoying decent levels for the past few days, and feeding normally. Alexandra system has experienced low levels because of high demands. "We have closed outlets between 9pm and 3am."

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Floyd Brink says they prioritised hospitals - Rahima Moosa, Helen Joseph Hospital and other clinics in the area. He says they are working closely with the department of health to deploy water tankers where needed.

- Iavan Pijoos

Floyd Brink: Our mitigation strategies: we have added more water tankers. We have started with 25 tankers and increased them to 35. We urge people to use water sparingly. We are working with maintenance. We request people to use water wisely. I apologise to our communities, we are committed to ensuring that our teams are working around the clock to ensure water is restored.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Floyd Brink: We are monitoring the progress following the two incidents. Soweto, Randburg, Johannesburg Central and South were affected. Rand Water is pumping an additional 100 megalitres for us to stabilise the system. Our systems are well interconnected. Soweto, Aeroton, Honeydew, Florida North are among the areas that have recovered well.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Floyd Brink says the Joburg Water technical team are monitoring the progress. He says the complete recovery will take some days.

- Iavan Pijoos

MMC Jack Sekwaiya: We apologise for the inconvenience. People are frustrated. They want to know when water is coming.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Gwamanda: We have 25 water tankers proving emergency water supplies to affected areas. We have prioritised hospitals clinics, old age homes and schools.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Kabelo Gwamanada: Water supply challenges we are facing were triggered by two incidents at the Eikenhof pump station on Sunday and the other on Monday.

They affected the stability of certain reservoirs within the City—affected areas, Randburg, Sostoweto Johannesburg Central and South. We have been noticing improvements with reservoirs and towers recovering.

Our systems will take time to recover. Water has to go through over 12 000km of pipeline. There would be a number of delays for water to be delivered.

- Ntwaagae Seleka

Joburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda said two incidents triggered the water outage in the city - outages on Sunday and Monday.

Gwamanda says the water supply to the City will take some time to recover.

- Iavan Pijoos

Gwamanda "commends" technical teams and asks residents to "work with us to bring the high water consumption down"

- Nicki Gules

Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda says that almost 50% of the city's water is supplied by the Eikenhof pumping station that suffered the outage.

- Nicki Gules

It's not that we aren't doing anything, we're going to fix water problem, says Ramaphosa

Water issues took centre stage during President Cyril Ramaphosa's imbizo in Mpumalanga on Thursday. 

The frustration of not having water in the Nkangala District Municipality in Mpumalanga was palpable, with many residents raising the issue. 

One of them was wheelchair-bound Phillip Ngidi, 59, from kwa-Guqa who made an impassioned plea to Ramaphosa.

Ngidi said: "We are faced with challenges Mr President, and one of them is water. Sometimes, we are without water for more than five days. We all know that water is life; without water, we are nothing."

Joburg headed for 'full-blown catastrophe', water activist warns as outage continues

An activist has warned Johannesburg is headed for "a full-blown catastrophe" if it does not act on the dire water situation.

The economic capital is suffering five days of no water after two power outages at Rand Water's Eikenhof pump station.

The power outages came from City Power's single source of electricity.

Joburg water crisis: Tariffs to go up but supply is down – many taps to remain dry for another week

Rand Water is adding 100 million litres to Johannesburg's water system to help improve the Roodepoort reservoirs and water towers, but Johannesburg Water said it would still take a few days to fully recover. 

On Thursday night, Johannesburg Water said there were some improvements in most systems, but it would intervene overnight with reservoirs and towers in the western parts of the city, which were still struggling. 

Meanwhile, Ward 99 councillor Nicole van Dyk said she feared water would only return next week. 

"It's been an absolutely horrible time for Ward 99 and the surrounding area. Much of the ward is still completely dry and [there's] no end in sight," she said.

'No power, no water, or both': Vexed Joburg residents could face at least another week without water

Johannesburg Water's prediction that it could take up to a week for the water system to recover is like a dagger to the heart of small businesses trying to survive in what is meant to be the country's economic capital.

According to the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), businesses have been moving out of the city in recent years because of infrastructure issues.

The current water outage comes after Rand Water's Eikenhof pump station suffered power outages on Sunday and Monday.