Parliamentarians have asked Morero to provide a detailed plan of how he will deal with the water challenges in Johannesburg.
Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero faced gruelling questions in parliament on Friday about the decaying state of the city and its water challenges.
He appeared in front of the parliament’s portfolio committee on water and sanitation.
However, that did not stop EFF’s MP Sibongile Khawula, also known as “MamKhawula”, from lambasting Morero about the poor state that the city finds itself in.
“The municipality of Johannesburg has failed its residents. As I speak to you, there are people who do not even have electricity. Some do not even have water, and these people have to take medication.
“I disagree with the mayor when he says he meets with communities; there are no meetings. The entire Johannesburg stinks.
“They do not clean, they rely a lot on tenders, they rely a lot on water tanks…The entire Johannesburg is rotten. They close the water on Friday, and then they open it on Monday morning. What do they think people will survive with?” said Khawula.
Morero responds to criticism
Morero denied that the city’s leadership had failed its residents.
“Part of what Johannesburg is facing is pipe bursts. As you would know, the bulk infrastructure is an old infrastructure called asbestos, and we are replacing it. It would not be correct to suggest that there is sewage everywhere in Johannesburg.
“There are certain pockets that we are experiencing bursts as a result of infrastructure that is under strain,” he said.
Morero said his mayoral committee, Section 79 committees and himself regularly interact with communities about the challenges they face.
“So, it would not be correct to say the executive mayor does not know what is happening in communities because we do go to communities to conduct oversight.
“It would also be incorrect to say that the executive mayor does not engage with these communities because we go through an IDP process where we go through the length and breadth of the city to engage in consultations,” he said.
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Concerns about infrastructure problems
The Department of Water and Sanitation welcomed the City of Johannesburg’s plan to solve the current water challenges.
However, the department said it is concerned about the downing tools of some contractors who have been tasked with repairing and capacitating the City’s distribution, storage and pumping abilities.
MPs also demanded answers about R4 billion that has been redirected from Johannesburg Water to other service delivery projects in the City.
In his response to these concerns, Morero said the city has been experiencing problems collecting enough revenue. He said this affected service delivery.
“The city has an obligation to collect just more than R5 billion. We know that if we have collected around R5.5bn, it means we are in a better situation on a monthly basis.
“But over time it has been stubborn; we do not have a consistent 90% collection rate and we are also alive to the fact that this could be part of the problems that we have economically. The economy is not responding, and a lot of people have lost their jobs, and because of that, our collection rate has been hovering between 86 and 87%.
“We are lucky if in that particular month it has gone to 90%,” he said.
Morero said the City has arrangements with some contractors, but he said some are already in a bad financial state and depend on the payments they receive from the City.
The situation has an impact on our cash flow, and it therefore means we are unable to pay all our contractors on time, and that is something that we have been working through to try to resolve it.
“We are also alive to the fact that our expenditure has exceeded our income, and that is something that we are dealing with,” he said.
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