Water woes continue
The frustration of broken water pipes continues for residents living in Elardus Park.
Residents of Elardus Park have been plagued by broken water pipes for the last month, and besides the Tshwane metro not cleaning up and filling up the holes after fixing the pipes, at least one broken pipe has been left unrepaired for over a week.
According to Hans Erasmus, a resident of the area in question, a burst pipe on the corner of Harvard and Frelon streets has been left unrepaired for more than a week, even though the Tshwane metro has been made aware of the problem and the broken pipe has caused water to bubble up through the tar road. “Hundreds of litres of water are being wasted, not to mention the road that is being destroyed and could fall in any day,” Erasmus said on Monday.
According to him, Tshwane workers came to inspect the problem last week, but said they could not repair it at the time. “I do not understand how they can leave without repairing a broken pipe.”
Rekord reported earlier that several old water pipes in Elardus Park have broken or burst since the end of last year, and that residents in the area were fed up with their sidewalks being dug up and left in a mess. According to Jan Swanepoel, the pipes that were removed were probably installed in the early 1970s, which he said explained why they continued to break one after the other.
“My driveway was so badly dug up that I could not drive onto my property. I had to ask the workers to fill it just so that I could park on my property,” Swanepoel said last Friday. “It is frustrating living in these conditions, because we still have no water. How are we supposed to flush our toilets or wash anything? I have had to resort to buying drinking water by the litre. It is unacceptable.”
Tshwane metro spokesperson, Lindela Mashigo, said on Monday that the City of Tshwane’s water and sanitation division was looking into the matter. “The city’s plumbers have been dispatched to attend to the matter,” Mashigo said on Monday.
Tshwane workers repaired the leaking pipe on Tuesday morning, but again left the rubble of the repair work on the side of the road.
