Johannesburg Water (JW) has still not repaired the five-year-old water leak inside the Kruispad-kerk grounds on Elise Road and Malibongwe Drive.

Resident and member of the church Johan Kruger confirmed that their late reverend tried to get this leak fixed long before he passed away in 2021, so it has been leaking for at least five years.

Read more: Water leak remains unchecked in Blairgowrie

He explained that he got involved, logging a fault in 2024, and has since sent 29 emails to JW, but the only work done was digging where the leak is in April 2025. Since then nothing further has been done. “The manager of Randburg Water, Ronny Mabophe, called in March this year and told me they are busy sourcing materials, and then they will fix the leak. After that, and countless emails later, nothing has been done, except the digging in April.
“The ward councillor also sent him an email, stating that their nonresponse was unacceptable. He finally replied that they are planning to fix the leak when the Rand Water shutdown occurred. Well, the shutdown has come and gone, and nothing was done.”

He added that, apart from the millions of litres of water that has gone to waste over five years, at the moment his main concern is the approximately 3m deep hole, which is full of water. “We have children that play outside on the church grounds. They can fall into that hole and drown.”

Ward 102 councillor Lucinda Harman confirmed that the entity was supposed to fix the leak during the recent planned Eikenhof pump station maintenance. “That is when JW promised to do repairs, but they didn’t. Now, we’re in September, and there is still a big hole filled with water, unsafe for children. This is a safety issue, and it’s just unacceptable on the grounds of a church.”

Also read: Five-year water leak on church grounds, and Johannesburg Water has done nothing

According to Harman, Rand Water says that 42% of water is being lost by JW. “They are doing nothing to rectify this. They are not doing what they meant to, which is fixing, restoring, maintaining, and making sure that all residents and businesses have water. They are not fulfilling their mandate. If they can’t attend a five-year leak, they’re not going to worry about the 24 to 36-hour issues.

“How much wastage are we talking about here? I mean, five years of potable water going to waste. Then JW has the cheek to tell the residents to use water sparingly.”

Questions were sent to the JW team on September 15. Nolwazi Dhlamini, external communications manager for JW, noted that they are liaising with the relevant depot to get more information, and will provide a response within their standard turnaround time of 48 hours, depending on the complexity of the matter and the input required from relevant technical departments.

Despite following up, Randburg Sun hadn’t received the response by the time of print. We will publish it once it is made available.

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