‘Mogale City hides reasons for water outages’
To make matters worse, the promise of water tankers at certain key points in the area did not materialise as expected.
Mogale City Local Municipality blamed Rand Water for the latest four-day water outage, when in fact, the real reason for the outage was that the municipality had not paid the water bill.
This resulted in the ‘throttling’ of the water supply by Rand Water.
According to Alan Fuchs, DA Constituency Head for Mogale, there are serious technical problems and expertise deficits in Mogale City that result in the number of water outages far exceeding those that occur in other municipalities in Gauteng.
“The high-lying areas of Krugersdorp were the first to run out of water, early last week. Officials in the municipality laid the blame on Rand Water. In addition, a narrative was created which suggested that the theft of electrical cables in Bruma was the cause.
Also Read: Cable theft in the East results in water disruptions in the West
“However, excellent sleuthing by DA public representatives in the council and in parliament exposed the real reasons for the outage.
The fact that the municipality was in arrears to the tune of R37 million resulted in Rand Water reducing the supply.”
An agreement was allegedly reached whereby Mogale City would make an interim payment of R7 million today to Rand Water in return for supply being restored. But residents are still without water.
“It is simply unacceptable that the real reasons for the outage were hidden from the public. An urgent investigation is required to bring to book those who either by omission or by commission, did not divulge the facts. To make matters worse, the promise of water tankers at certain key points in the area did not materialise as expected.
“Maybe the time has come for residents to channel their anger, to stand together and challenge Mogale City in a court of law, to ensure that the council meets its constitutional obligations to provide services to the residents,” Fuchs said.
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