Cape Town – Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero has reassured residents that water supply will be restored to all areas of the city by Christmas following a planned maintenance outage that left many households without water for 86 hours.
Speaking during a site visit to the Honeydew Reservoir and Tower in Roodepoort on Wednesday, Morero said water supply to some areas would resume by Thursday, with all affected areas expected to recover by Friday.
“We are going to other areas to check them and make sure all of them are done and have water supply. But we can give a commitment to all the residents of Johannesburg that they will have water; all of them by Christmas. Others by tomorrow [with] some areas the water levels will be high.
[1/2] Update on the recovery of Johannesburg systems that were impacted by the Rand Water Maintanance that took place from 13-16 December 2024.#JoburgUpdates pic.twitter.com/EGSAysWfXJ
— Executive Mayor of the City Of Joburg (@DadaMorero) December 18, 2024
“So hopefully by Friday, all those areas that were affected by maintenance will have water. We are asking for residents to continue exercising a bit of patience. We are almost at the last mile and the water will be there,” Morero said.
The mayor emphasised that postponing the system maintenance and upgrades was not an option.
He said that the maintenance, deemed critical, was scheduled during a period when fewer residents were in the city to minimise disruption.
[2/2] Update on the recovery of Johannesburg systems that were impacted by the Rand Water Maintanance that took place from 13-16 December 2024.#JoburgUpdates pic.twitter.com/thvlDI6thh
— Executive Mayor of the City Of Joburg (@DadaMorero) December 18, 2024
“[It is critical] maintenance that has to be done. We thought, as Joburg Water, we would ask them to postpone, but it was critical that this intervention happens, and it happens now. You would know that to a large extent, our numbers go down in Johannesburg as people start travelling out of the city, so we think it was the best period to do so.
“We also aimed that by [Christmas Day] all maintenance programmes would have been completed and people would have water. We are also trying to attract people to come and visit Johannesburg and spend their Christmas in Johannesburg and everybody would want to be in a place that has constant water supply,” Morero said.
Johannesburg Water noted gradual improvement in the water system’s performance but emphasised that full recovery depended on Rand Water reservoirs stabilising.
Residents wereurged to use water sparingly, adhere to level 1 water restrictions, and remain patient as repairs and recovery efforts continued.
Follow African Insider on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Picture: X/@DadaMorero
For more African news, visit Africaninsider.com
Compiled by Betha Madhomu
