Residents demand feedback regarding water cuts

Residents from Eldoraigne, Centurion, demanded feedback from Rand Water as well as Tshwane metro after they have recently experienced water interruptions for almost three days. According to one of the residents, Marius Schoeman, Rand Water has imposed water restrictions on the bulk water meter that supplies the Bakenkop Reservoir from Friday, October 29, to Sunday, October 31. “Bakenkop reservoir is the main supply for various suburbs in Centurion. The restriction was imposed without any notice to the City of Tshwane. That resulted in the Bakenkop reservoir running empty.

“The City of Tshwane officials reportedly requested Rand Water to lift the restriction on Saturday morning, October 30.” Schoeman said Rand Water delayed opening the meter until that afternoon. “The restriction on the meter has eventually been lifted and the reservoir was expected to recover overnight. Water supply was only restored to Eldoraigne on Sunday morning.

“The City of Tshwane’s inability to manage this situation is as concerning as Rand Water’s complete disregard of simple principles of stakeholder engagement.”

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Schoeman said water tankers were reportedly dispatched late on Saturday, but no communication of where these tankers would be stationed had been communicated. “Rand Water’s published values to supposedly ‘ensure that all its people operate in an environment characterised by the values of excellence, caring, equity, integrity and a spirit of partnership’.

“The only thing that is clear, other than deafening silence, is that Rand Water’s values are only words on a website.” According to Schoeman, who is to be held accountable, it is a rhetorical question “since neither the City of Tshwane, nor Rand Water, was prepared to give us feedback”. Schoeman said Rand Water reverted to his query by informing him to contact the City of Tshwane regarding water shortages in areas in their jurisdiction. Also, he must note that when Rand Water has to implement its projects that may lead to water shortages, Rand Water always releases media statements informing the public of such a project.

And that the municipality must release a media statement stating the same when they have projects that may lead to water shortages. “I have requested a copy of the said media statement, to no avail. It is simply unacceptable not to inform residents of water shortages. “We want to know who must be held accountable for the decision to reduce water supply levels where residents have been without water for the best part of three consecutive days.

“Also, who is accountable for the decision to delay the re-opening of water supply supplies to the Bakenkop reservoir the next day. Who is accountable for the complete lack of transparent and factual communication to residents while the water supply was interrupted as a result of Rand Water’s action. And what are Rand Water and the City of Tshwane’s corrective actions to prevent this from happening again.”

According to Justice Mohale, Rand Water spokesperson, “the Bakenkop meter is one of the meters in the City of Tshwane that are currently restricted by Rand Water. Rand Water currently has restrictions in place on bulk meters for all its municipal customers. “These restrictions have been implemented in consultation with all our municipal customers to achieve Water Use Efficiency (WUE) within the various municipalities. This exercise assists in stabilising Rand Water’s and the municipalities’ water supply network.”

He said this exercise was conducted in conjunction with the affected municipalities. “When the municipality observes that water supply in an area with a restricted meter will be affected, they formally request Rand Water to lift the restriction on that particular meter and submit another meter for restriction where there is no effect on supply. “Formal discussions between Rand Water, Cities of Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni have been held regularly, since August, to discuss the significance of restrictions.

The allegation raised regarding the Bakenkop meter is not true. Rand Water and the City of Tshwane engage each other when water supply challenges emerge.” Lindela Mashigo, Tshwane metro spokesperson, said the metro was aware that the area had been without said water supply. “Rand Water instituted restriction on Bakenkop meter after realising that it was not restricted before when they were instituting restrictions across all Tshwane supply meters.”

“At the community level, the ward councillor was informed of the outage. The metro requested Rand Water to lift the restriction.” The DA councillor of ward 69, Cindy Billson, denied being informed timeously.

Mashigo admitted it could indeed be that Billson was informed late, after the fact.

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