Water crisis continues

Representatives from Rand Water, Joburg Water, City Power and the metro presented the meeting, hoping to shed some clarity on the on-going water crisis.

Ms Louise Pieters, from City Power, explained to journalists in attendance how the installation of a new stand-by transformer would help ensure that a crisis like this would not happen in the future.

The NEWS reported earlier that there was still uncertainty about when water will be restored.

The installation should take place within the next 14 days.

“When the transformer is installed and fully operational, we should not experience any problems in electrical supply as we have now,” she said.

The next speaker was Lungile Dlamini, the managing director of Joburg Water.

He explained that the water crisis was not isolated to one area but was rather a widespread situation that all the representatives’ departments had attempted to monitor and control.

Dlamini went on to explain the difficulty faced in filling the now depleted reservoirs.

“When the output is almost as high as the input, it becomes increasingly difficult to fill the reservoirs.”

The reservoirs cannot be shut down completely; this means that consumers can still access the water continuously, making it increasingly difficult to normalise the water distribution.

Phil Mashoko was next to take to the floor.

He explained that the metro originally believed that the low water pressure was due to the normal increase in water demand, associated with the change of season.

However, the situation changed when the water began to completely disappear in suburbs in the metro.

“Water has been restored to most suburbs.

“Our main focus rests on areas such as Primrose and Sunnyridge in Germiston and areas of Bedfordview.”

“As the metro, we are trying our best to manage the on-going crisis,” said Mashoko.

“Our plan forward is to balance the water distribution throughout the metro to try and avoid any one suburb being left without water.”

Before opening the floor to journalists, chief operations officer of Rand Water Sipho Mosai, informed those in attendance that Eskom had just informed him that power had been restored to all reservoirs, as some had since been affected by cable theft.

“This means we are ready to function at full capacity,” said Mosai.

The panel of representatives jointly agreed that no time frame could be given for the complete normalisation of the water grid.

All departments continue to monitor the situation, with promises of a calculated time being tabled.

At this moment, it is unclear as to when residents can expect their water supply to be restored.