Johannesburg — Residents across areas in Joburg have suffered during the current heatwave as they have now been without water for over a week.
Large part of Randburg continue to suffer without water despite Joburg Water’s Action Plan to recover the Linden 1 and Blairgowrie systems. Johannesburg Water said technical teams were monitoring the progress as they remained areas of focus, SowetanLIVE reported.
Johannesburg Water said it reached an agreement with Rand Water to supply 100 megalitres of water to alleviate the strain but it has not yet come to fruition.
ActionSA Joburg caucus leader, councillor Nobuhle Mthembu said the water crisis which has left frustrations boiling in South Africa’s economic mainstay is a result of poor governance, IOL said.
“We are unequivocal in our assertion; we believe that water crisis that the city is encountering is as a result of administrations that lack vision.” Methembu said.
Two power outages, including one caused by lightning, have affected the Eikenhof pump station, leaving residents of Joburg areas including greater Soweto, Roodepoort, Hursthill, Crosby and Brixton with intermittent water supply.
#JoburgUpdates ^P pic.twitter.com/IIgvlBjYvU
— Johannesburg Water (@JHBWater) March 11, 2024
City Power then distanced themselves from allegations from the DA that the power outages led to water outages, but spokesperson, Isaac Mangena, said the information shared by Van Dyk was false and misleading, The Citizen reported.
“While the entity acknowledges the enormous weight of the inconvenience caused to the residents of Johannesburg, City Power believes that misleading information only serves to aggravate the situation.” Mabena said.
He added that there was no outage from City Power’s side that affected Rand Water operations and ultimately, Joburg Water. He said Jobrug Water reported a 90-minute disruption after operations at teh Zwartkopies pumping station, but that matter got fixed by Eskom.
“The main outage at Eikenhof substation which tampered with Rand Water operations only happened last week Monday following a flashover that damaged the feeder board that supplies power to the water utility. That outage was restored on Tuesday night as promised and Rand Water operations fully returned to service,” Mangena said.
Some Johannesburg residents are battling dry taps for the ninth day, as a heatwave grips Gauteng. This after a power outage at the Eikenhof pump station affected supply last week. The DA’s Nicole van Dyk says it’s unfair to blame the residents.
Watch: https://t.co/jrOBnkhjyI pic.twitter.com/fnLuihY6Cf
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) March 11, 2024
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
