The DA in Ekurhuleni is appalled at the City of Ekurhuleni’s inability to manage water supply in Kempton Park.
Residents of Bonaero Park, Brentwood Park, Pomona and Glen Marais were without water for over four days a few weeks ago, owing to “repairs on a major supply line in Spartan”, said ward councillors Pieter Henning and André du Plessis.
“From November 12 to 16, residents of these suburbs were without water for prolonged periods of time, while the City was not honest about the duration of the outages. In four notices from the City none of the listed deadlines were met,” they added.
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“The DA in Ekurhuleni has been calling for urgent upgrades to the ailing water infrastructure in Kempton Park for years now. This infrastructure is roughly 60 years old and is failing at regular intervals due to its age. This results in residents having continuous water outages for extended periods while the burst pipes are repaired.
“The other critical issue is the lack of communication from the metro. Apart from the notices with false information, there has been no official notification or communication from the executive mayor, Clr Mzwandile Masina, or the MMC for Water, Sanitation and Energy, Clr Tiisetso Nketle.
“Furthermore, there has been a lack of adequate and efficient on-the-ground communication from the HOD and engineers. Subsequently, we, as councillors, are withstanding the worst verbal abuse and threats from frustrated and irate residents, while there was no reliable information from the metro.
“We call on the City of Ekurhuleni to actively upgrade the water infrastructure in the area. Residents can no longer be expected to accept these regular water interruptions, while the metro sits idle.”
Responding to questions asked by Kempton Express about the prolonged water outage, Themba Gadebe, metro spokesperson, said a 350mm leaking water pipe at Bohler had to be replaced, while a 1 000mm water pipe leak at Supaquick had to be repaired. Both these pipes were on Isando Road.
According to the original notice sent out by the metro, water would have been cut at 11am on November 12. Residents said this did not happen.
“The water team closed water at 11am and the water cut was intended for the area which we needed to work on, and also allow water supply to the community while working. The plan was to continue with supply where we could while repairing, although we have notified all stakeholders in case they would be affected,” said Gadebe.
Asked what the “unforeseen circumstances” were which delayed the project, Gadebe answered: “The heavy rains, as well as the water supply in the network that took longer to dry up than expected at the site where the team was working.
“The team started to open valves from 2pm to 5pm as per the updated notice, which was shared with stakeholders. It should be noted that it takes time to fill up the entire water network which was affected.”
Certain areas remained without water on the morning of November 14 as the water reservoirs (Isando and Spartan) were empty at the time the metro opened the water.
“We had to rely on Rand Water supply to directly feed areas such as Spartan, Kempton Park CBD, Glen Marais, Aston Manor and Allen Grove.”
According to Gadebe the pipe at Bohler has previously been repaired. However, this time it was leaking at the end of a 600mm steel pipe. The leak at Supaquick was a first-time occurrence.
