Dry taps frustrate residents
During a council meeting held at the council chambers in Germiston, Member of the Mayoral Committee, Clr Aubrey Nxumalo, said as part of resolving the water shortage which residents have dubbed a crisis, his department had activated eight water tankers and enlisted help from outside service providers.
Duenna Mambana
The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) has revealed plans to build two reservoirs and bring in six water tankers come June 2015.
This comes amid the water shortage that has left residents without water for over a week.
During a council meeting held at the council chambers in Germiston, Member of the Mayoral Committee, Clr Aubrey Nxumalo, said as part of resolving the water shortage which residents have dubbed a crisis, his department had activated eight water tankers and enlisted help from outside service providers.
He said, “There are also briefing sessions taking place at a national level with concerned parties. We have also installed JOJO tankers in strategic places.”
Nxumalo said the metro had also reduced pressure in affected areas.
Emotions ran high during the meeting when the DA’s Clr Jackie Reilly called on the the executive mayor, Clr Mondli Gungubele, to declare the shortage as a disaster and for disaster management to intervene. She said her party called for Eskom and Rand Water to be invited to a special council sitting to account.
In his address, Clr Gungubele apologised to affected residents and said residents had the right to be upset. He said although other affected areas had been restored, the same could not be said about Bedfordview, Primrose and Tembisa.
“In the meantime, our water department has been encouraged to increase the number of water tankers in these areas as we look for a resolution to the network problem,” said Clr Gungubele.
He said the metro was not doing well as far as water loss was concerned.
“We also need to start taking responsibility for the EMM’s own water loss in the form of pipe leaks,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bedfordview councillor, Clr Jill Hamphreys and her colleagues, took their own version of the now-popular ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and used sand instead of water.
The group cited the lack of water as their reason for using sand.
Furthermore, the party met with Rand Water executives last Thursday to discuss the shortage.
The parastatal’s general manager of operations, Mr Mduduzi Mkhize, blamed the shortage on power challenges and a high demand season.
“It is a challenge for the entity to fill up all the reservoirs, not only because we are in a high demand season, but because as the water goes into the reservoirs, it goes out immediately because a lot of people use the water, making the increase in the reservoir not sufficient,” explained Mr Mkhize.
Residents took to the social networking site, Twitter, to express their frustrations.
One such tweet read. “… Bedfordview is now on its sixth day without water. We’ve become the forgotten suburb. Ridiculous.”
Dr Fawcett Ngoatje said the entity is currently in talks with the affected municipalities and will set up a meeting with City Power, Eskom and the portfolio community to discuss the shortage further.
At the time of going to press, there was still no clear indication as to when water would be restored in the affected areas.
