Rand Water leaves Benoni dry

Taps have again run dry throughout Benoni, leaving large parts without water.

According to Ward 27 Clr Lornette Joseph, the latest outage is due to two faults on Rand Water’s supply lines, with a third at the Benoni 2 reservoir.

“We have two Rand Water reservoirs, better known as Benoni 2 and 3, that receive water directly from the utility’s system,” Joseph explained.

“Using the pump, the tower is filled with water which is gravitationally fed throughout suburbs, including Airfield, Northmead, Morehill, Rynfield, Farramere, Goudeberg, Norton Home estates, Northvilla, Brentwood Park and parts of Rynfield AH.

Joseph also said that on June 12, due to alleged negligence on the part of Rand Water, the pump at Benoni 3 burnt out, and as a result of load-shedding, the telemetric system was damaged.

“Due to this technical issue, the pumps must be manually switched on to ensure the water levels remain above 20%. This morning (June 14), the level at the reservoir was sitting at 61.87%, but due to the pipelines being dry, water supply to the affected suburbs may take some time to return to normal,” she said.

“The manual process will continue until the system is repaired.

“The problem was further exasperated due to a burst water pipe, which feeds the reservoir directly, at the Rand Water treatment centre.”

The spokesperson for the Ekurhuleni Metro, Zweli Dlamini, confirmed that the water outage was caused by infrastructure failure on the utility’s water network.

“The city has temporarily provided roving water tankers to the affected areas to mitigate the impact of the disruption,” he said.

“The CoE’s digital platforms will communicate updates on the interruption to residents.”

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