REGULAR and prolonged water outages at a shopping centre in central Kempton Park are jeopardising its future.
The managing agents of Kempton Square expressed the urgency to put a stop to the continuous interruptions experienced at the centre and the immediate surrounds of the building.
“Our tenants are beyond fed up with these constant interruptions. They rely on water for many reasons, most importantly, hydration and hygiene.
“Our ablution facilities are not functional and in a disgusting state. To put it plainly, we would like to remind Ekurhuleni Metro that water is a human right and any further delay in sorting out this problem would be violating this right. Therefore, on behalf of our tenants and customers, we demand immediate recourse, and in the long term, insist that urgent action be taken to avoid future incidents,” they said.
“Our clients and staff can’t go to the bathroom and some of them even walk as far as Arwyp to use their facilities because the centre’s bathrooms are out of order for more than a month now. Not even to mention the freezers that can’t run without water, if we hadn’t installed a JoJo upstairs at our own expense we would have lost thousands of Rand’s due to meat going off,” said store manager at Pick n pay, Ian Leonard.
One of the more recent interruptions took three weeks to sort out. According to the centre, Ekurhuleni first insisted it was not council related.
“And again the metaphorical finger was pointed back at us. Out of desperation, we appointed a leak detection expert, costing us no less than R4 000, to try and find some answers, but this turned out to be money thrown down the drain.”
“We now had a third opinion that the problem was council related, and as of Monday this week council has only verbally admitted fault. Apart from the fact that we have numerous employees and contractors working on site, some being physical labourers and all of whom who rely on water to keep hydrated, this also puts financial strain on all of us due to damages suffered as a result of losing business. ”
“Subsequently, we had our plumbers conduct numerous inspections to see where the problem was, only to be referred back to council. A frustrated tenant then contacted our ward councillor, Jaco Terblanche, who had his engineer inspect the site.
“We can’t even make something as simple as a cup of tea or wash our hands. Some of us wait until we get home after a nine-hour day to go to the bathroom, which is not very healthy, because the water is off every single day. We have been without water for seven weeks now,” said the owner of Gothatso herbal health shop.
“I somehow doubt that council intends to reimburse us these damages.”
A staff member at Body Lab said they have been losing clients because they can’t supply any drinking water or shower facilities.
Themba Gadebe, metro spokesman, said: “Investigations are still under way. The metro will provide more information once the investigations have been carried through.”
Ward councillor Jaco Terblanche said Ekurhuleni Municipality has a challenge regarding the overflow of the Jan Smuts reservoir.
“Every time they shut down the reservoir, water pressure to the shopping centre drops to zero. The problem is, when the water has been restored, the pressure at the complex is not picking up as quickly as it should.
“The water department is currently assisting the centre with the problem. All indications are, by the less frequent water interruptions the past few weeks, that the Jan Smuts reservoir problem is nearly fixed,” Terblanche said.
