Community and media pressure resulted in the City of Johannesburg finally responding to weeks of complaints about Parkwood water outages.
This is after members from the Parkview Residents Association and Saxonwold and Parkwood Residents Association (SAPRA) held a meeting on February 11.
An active resident in the community, Stuart Norman said the straw that broke the camel’s back was the constant water bursts that were being repaired for 18 months.
“The repairs have been of a poor quality and standard. As residents, we called a community meeting on February 11 which was attended by 300 community members and the media who then helped to get in touch with the mayor’s office. On February 12, the managing director of Johannesburg Water and the mayor’s office knew about the problem and held a meeting to which I was invited.”
Sapra’s chairman, Bill Haslam highlighted that the driving force behind the City of Johannesburg’s involvement was a concerned resident who orchestrated the entire matter with the Parkview Residents Association as well as SAPRA.
Haslam said, “The main role of a resident association is to represent the interest of the community to people entities like the City of Johannesburg and to make sure the interests of the residents are maintained throughout.”
In a media release by the City of Johannesburg, it’s stated that as a responsive government, the Executive Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda immediately dispatched a team comprising the city’s manager, Floyd Brink, the chief operations officer of the city, the managing director of Johannesburg Water, the regional head of Johannesburg Roads Agency and the executive head of Citizen Relationships and Urban Management in the City.
“The team has duly reported that it has visited the site and was met by representatives of the residents’ forum who provided an account of the challenges they face, and the seemingly unsatisfactory workmanship of the repairs done previously.”
Brink confirmed that the following directions were made for immediate action:
Backfilling to commence tomorrow morning
- Repairs are currently being monitored for visual leaks and everything is currently in order for backfilling to commence on the morning of February 13
- Construction of valve boxes to commence simultaneously with backfilling that includes a fill blanket over the pipework and G5 subgrade material.
- Road layer works to be done by JRA including final asphalt surface reinstatement from February 13
- Estimated completion time is 15 days
The city manager added that the City was pleased to share there was a long-term project aimed at replacing the water and sewer infrastructure in and around Parkwood.
“The project is in the final design stages and commencement of the 13km pipe replacements should commence on July 1. We have also commenced work with the Parkwood sewer pipe replacement project and it is being implemented in five phases.”
He added that to date, three phases are complete constituting approximately 10km. A contractor for phase four was appointed on February 9 and the scope includes 3km of pipelines.
He concluded that the planned commencement of works is April 1, and the completion date will be December. “Amongst the challenges of Parkwood is ageing infrastructure. A majority of the water pipelines are 70 years and older and the pipe replacement project is intended to replace these pipes and the city wishes to assure residents of its commitment to resolve the water problems with the utmost urgency and professionalism.”
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