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Water outages hit eastern Pretoria after failed maintenance and repair delays, leaving residents frustrated and unprepared.
Picture: iStock
Residents in the east of Pretoria were left without water or warning on Monday in a series of maintenance errors in the City of Tshwane.
Last week, residents in Equestria and surrounding areas were left without water for 28 hours after a four-hour scheduled maintenance was unsuccessful.
City spokesperson Lindela Mashingo said the water outage was part of maintenance to replace a valve and fit a pipe on the water supply in Lynwood Ridge that was scheduled for 8 am to 4 pm.
Equestria without water or electricity for five weeks – councillor
A councillor in Equestria claimed the area had been without water or electricity for five weeks.
Jacqui Uys, the DA Tshwane caucus chair, said the water interruption was due to a main water pipe burst on the corner of Farm and Ouklipmuur roads.
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“Teams turned off the water on Monday night with the intent to only fix it on Tuesday morning.”
Uys said while the planned water outage should not affect Equestria, residents should be prepared it might.
“We won’t know beforehand if we are affected by this maintenance and last week taught us that we don’t know how long it will last.
‘Failing govt that does not care’
“We have a failing government that does not care. We have got through events like this in the past by standing together as a community,” she said.
Many complaints over water have been reported in Soshanguve, with some residents claiming outage of up to two weeks.
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DA spokesperson for utilities in the City of Tshwane Themba Fosi said the maintenance was a disaster at the moment.
“The current maintenance in Soshanguve gets water from the Hartebeeshoek reservoirs and Centurion, which is directly fed by the Rand Water pipeline, not the city.
“What happened in Equestria was done by the city’s maintenance team,” he said.
Staff goslows cause prolonged water interruptions
“The guys are on a goslow because overtime has been abruptly cut and has created a lot of chaos.
“When the clock strikes four, they pack up and leave, whether the work was completed or not,” he said.
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Fosi said the way overtime had been capped destabilised the basic service delivery in the city.
