WATER UPDATE: Mayor wants Benoni load-shedding free for five days

It has been nine days since the taps ran dry throughout large parts of Benoni yet there is no clear indication when the matter will be resolved.

Yesterday (March 23) the Benoni City Times reported that Rand Water’s general manager of operations, Simon Xaba, released a statement blaming vandalism for putting further strain on the struggling system.

“The utility discovered that the A8 and B1 chambers were vandalised, affecting supply to the Zwartkopjes system,” said Xaba.

“Teams are in the process of repairing the damaged infrastructure but no turn-around time has been established.”

As a result, pumping at Zwartkopjes booster pumping station was reduced to 80% because the sumps could not be maintained thus resulting in the depletion of all Rand Water reservoirs. This mostly affected Benoni, Yeoville and Forest Hill.

Responding to questions from City Times today, Ekurhuleni mayoral spokesperson Warren Gwilt stated that teams from Rand Water were still in the process of repairing the affected pipelines, however, the impact on water supply has further been exacerbated by continued load-shedding.

“The office of the mayor has written to Eskom requesting that Benoni be exempt from load-shedding for a period of five days to allow pump stations to work unabated to fill the reservoirs,” said Gwilt.

“We are at the mercy of both Rand Water and Eskom, entities that the city has no jurisdiction over. All we can do is ask that they work with us to have the issue resolved.”

He said that a request has been sent to the the MMC for Water, Sanitation and Energy, Senzi Sibeko, to deliver comment in video format explaining to residents why the water supply chain has been so severely affected and what steps the department has taken to resolve the issue.

The video will be published on the City Times website as soon as we receive it.

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