Ward 101 councillor praised for hands-on support during water crisis

Residents in the east of Pretoria have praised Ward 101 councillor Malcolm de Klerk for going above and beyond his responsibilities during the recent water outage.

Several suburbs within Ward 101 were left without water from May 29 to June 2 due to maintenance by Rand Water on a major supply line.

Throughout the disruption, residents said De Klerk remained actively involved, ensuring regular communication and updates.

He arranged for water deliveries to frail and vulnerable residents and worked with local businesses and homeowners with boreholes to provide relief to affected households.

His hands-on approach and swift co-ordination efforts were met with widespread appreciation from the community.

Although water tankers were supplied by the city, De Klerk made sure residents had timely updates and information about them.

De Klerk said his political party organised community tanks and private water donations in affected wards.

“Silver Lakes, The Sheer, Paramount Estates, Olympus and Moreleta Park, we provided water. Typically, it’s five to 10 cubic metre tankers. It’s for the vulnerable, and the community has taken this initiative well,” he said.

De Klerk said everyone was prioritised, but especially the vulnerable.

“We have got community responders that have provided borehole water or carried water for our vulnerable residents.

“We have also partnered up with businesses and churches to provide community assistance with bulk water points.”

De Klerk said, “With the right information, it was one of the best outages to deal with”.

He personally thanked Sipho Mosai, the CEO of Rand Water.

Candice Beukes, a resident at The Wilds Estate, expressed her appreciation.

“A big shout out to Malcolm, our ward councillor, who kept us informed and up to date with the work progress.”

Beukes said the supply interruption was well planned, and she is impressed with how everything went since water has been restored now.

“I can honestly say we had it pretty easy, I think, and am super impressed with how well planned and managed this process was. The work went according to plan, and we have water back and the pressure is good too.”

She explained that she stocked up with water, filled up one bath and some 10-litre bottles, as well as buckets and two cooler boxes, which they kept sealed and used for drinking or cooking, as well as about 10 glass 1-litre bottles.

“We bought a 23-litre plastic heating bucket and set it up in our one shower so we did not have to keep carrying heavy pots of boiling water up the stairs.”

She added that she used that with cold water from the filled bath to bathe and had warm to hot baths every day.

She said their water only ran out on Sunday morning. They opted to go to Spur Woodlands for breakfast and had a braai to avoid washing dishes.

Beukes appreciated the early warning about the planned maintenance work that would cause a supply interruption.

“I think we were given adequate warning of the planned work, and we were able to plan around the disruption. We filled four 10-litre bottles at my daughter’s work in Benoni, and we still had ample water. So we learnt to reuse water, not to waste it.”

She added that if the water outage had been longer, one could have become frustrated.

“My parents, who are 83 and 79 and stay in Constantia Park, had a bit of a prolonged outage and found this a bit frustrating.”

Beukes said that for the elderly, it was a challenge, especially to carry bottles or buckets of water to fill toilets and baths.

Residents from Featherwood Retirement Estate expressed appreciation to De Klerk.

They said he went out of his way to arrange water for them by filling the reservoir at the frail care units during this time.

Featherwood has 250 normal household residents and 80 in frail care.

Sandra Froneman said De Klerk was heaven-sent.

“I would like to appreciate him for the awesome work he did. He went beyond the call of duty to make sure that every resident has water and is kept informed on all progress occurring.”

Residents said bathing, washing and sanitation were the most challenging parts, but it was made easy having a ward councillor who put people’s needs first.

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