Water, power and reporting problems persist in Tshwane

If it isn’t the power, it’s the water in the city of Tshwane, with multiple outages, maintenance and delayed ETAs.

Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashigo has urged residents to exercise patience during the supply restoration period as the network takes time to recover before it reaches the required pressure.

“At this moment, the city’s reservoirs, which are fed by the Hartebeeshoek reservoir, are empty. It is, however, reassuring to note that the city’s distribution network has started to fill.

“Once the network is fully pressurised, the levels of the reservoirs will start picking up.

“The city is once more pleading with residents in low-lying areas to use water sparingly when the supply is restored, to allow the system to reach a level at which high-lying areas can get a supply,” he said.

Water tankers

Mashigo said the city will continue to provide water through roaming water tankers to affected customers until the supply is fully restored.

“Tshwane has been informed by Rand Water that the cleaning, maintenance and inspection of the Hartebeeshoek reservoir has been completed. The water utility’s team of technicians managed to timely complete the work, which started on 3 July and was anticipated to take 16 days, with the last day being Friday, 18 July,” he said.

Mashigo said that during the maintenance period, various areas in Region 1 experienced a water supply interruption, prompting the city to dispatch water tankers to the affected areas.

“The water utility is currently supplying the Tshwane reservoirs through the bypass system, while simultaneously working on filling the Hartebeeshoek reservoir.

“According to Rand Water, supplying directly through the reservoir at this stage would significantly delay the network recovery. Consequently, both processes are being conducted in parallel to optimise supply restoration,” he said.

ALSO READ: Tshwane battles power outages

Power outage

Earlier this week, parts of Equestria experienced another prolonged power outage due to a trip on the 1 transformer at Wapadrand substation, which has left residents in the area and surrounding areas without power for days earlier this month.

The same area also suffered prolonged water outages last week after a scheduled four-hour maintenance period turned into days.

Ward councillor Jacqui Uys described it as an unending frustration of issues plaguing Equestria.

Although the outages are not caused by the substation itself, but faults in the cable network, the new substation will have better protections and not trip the entire transformer. Only the area affected by the cable fault will trip.

“The first half of the new substation was commissioned in April and was expected to be operational by the end of that month. The city is just not implementing the switch-over. This needs to be done,” she said.

Uys said the problem was that every time there is an outage, just enough work is done to get the power on and the network is not restored to the state it was designed for, which left two different power outages in Equestria.

There have been reports of a massive power outage affecting the Hatfield area, with some businesses claiming it was the second day without power.

Can’t report a problem

A municipal worker who agreed to speak anonymously said that, besides the challenges of overtime caps and the shortage of supplies due to the end of the financial year, the challenges of connecting to the e-Tshwane platform and the Tshwane Mobile app added to the backlog.

“If people want to report through E-Tshwane, they may not be able to determine what an indication of the large area is for you and allocate additional resources,” the worker said.

The city has apologised to its customers currently experiencing challenges connecting to the e-Tshwane platform and the Tshwane Mobile app since Thursday.

“This comes as a result of a faulty line between the city’s network system and the e-Tshwane platform, which has also impacted access to the Tshwane mobile app. The city’s technicians are currently attending to the matter with a view to restoring this essential service.”

NOW READ: Tshwane municipality issues warning to landlords illegally subdividing apartments