“We’ll take a bit of time to get everything stabilised, but we are now cruising quite nicely.”

These were the words of SA Deputy President Shipokosa Paulus Mashatile during his oversight visit to water infrastructure facilities in Midrand on February 20, in his capacity as chairperson of the water task team.

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The visit forms part of ongoing interventions aimed at monitoring progress and unlocking bottlenecks in resolving persistent water challenges affecting residents across the province.

Mashatile was joined by Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi, City of Johannesburg Executive Mayor Dada Morero, and MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services Jack Sekwaila, among other senior officials.

The programme began with a technical briefing at the Gauteng provincial disaster management centre. The delegation then proceeded to the Grand Central tower before heading to the Carlswald reservoir construction site, where infrastructure upgrades are currently underway. “In my discussion with the premier and the mayor this morning, I heard that we are out of trouble for now, out of the woods. Still a long journey to go, work that we need to do, but at least the system is pumping water to the residents.

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“There may be areas here and there where there might still be challenges, but we’re getting there. The briefing I received from the premier and executive mayor is quite pleasing. We are making progress, and we will continue to monitor. I did say earlier to them that this is a whole-of-government approach. We don’t want a situation where we say: ‘No, this is a problem of the executive mayor, or it’s a problem of the premier’. It’s a whole-of-government. We work together, we combine resources, and we make sure that we address the challenges that our citizens are facing.”

@caxtonjoburgnorth WATCH: Johannesburg Water operations manager Gugulethu Quma brief government and City of Johannesburg officials about the Midrand water infrastructure facilities. Video: Comfort Makhanya #JW #Midrand ♬ original sound Caxton Joburg North

The oversight visit follows a meeting convened by the deputy president with ministers and key government stakeholders to assess the ongoing water supply challenges across Gauteng. During that engagement, officials received updates on measures being implemented to address system constraints. “We know that water is life. There’s very little you can do if you don’t have water. So, we take this very seriously, and make sure that all the disruptions are dealt with, and, of course, build capacity for the future. That is why they were saying to us they are planning that the [water system] will pump for the next 20 years, but they are planning for even more years to expand. So that, in future, we should not have the problem of water.”

Johannesburg Water said it continues to monitor all systems closely and implement the necessary technical interventions to stabilise supply.
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