Johannesburg Water’s 21-day promise turns into a year-long wait
The water utility has failed to fix the hazardous excavation site on Edison Crescent outside Sunninghill Shopping Centre, leaving ward councillor Vino Reddy bearing the brunt of complaints from residents.
Johannesburg Water (JW) has failed to provide Ward 93 councillor Vino Reddy a satisfactory explanation for the delay in repairing a water leak and reinstating an excavation on Edison Crescent outside Sunninghill Shopping Centre.
According to Reddy, JW had claimed the reinstatement would be completed within 21 days, however, the excavation has remained for more than a year, much to the concern of residents.
“The residents are getting tired of reporting service delivery issues and getting promises with no action,” said Reddy. “We need to make our city beautiful again. The city is deteriorating to such an extent that it is falling apart. We need to implement the broken window principle, start fixing one thing at a time and make things look good again.” Reddy also expressed frustration with the lack of communication from JW.
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Fourways Review asked JW’s Nombuso Shabalala what the timeline was for repairing the leak and completing the reinstatement of the excavation. “The timeline is 21 days, provided there are no other services interfering with the work,” she replied. “As JW, we try our best to keep community members constantly informed of planned and unplanned maintenances, which we issue twice a day. These are shared on our social media platforms, the JW website, and ward councillor WhatsApp groups.
“Once the repairs, or maintenance, is completed, we do inform the community about the completed work. We are committed to improving communication with customers, and, in this case, conducting site visits, when necessary, with the councillor and the inspector from the ward.”
Read more: Councillor calls out JW for rotten Sunninghill excavation
When asked what steps the water utility would take to ensure that the excavation site was properly secured, Shabalala said: “To secure the sites that are still being worked on, JW utilises either the entity’s branded barrier tape or barricading nets.” However, when Fourways Review visited the site, it had not been secured.
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