Although water shortages, costs and losses are becoming increasingly problematic, not only around our towns, the Merafong City Local Municipality fails to give this problem the attention it deserves.
Residents of numerous areas, like Amanzimtoti-, Tugela-, and Juliana streets in Carletonville and Oberholzer, have recently complained about persistent water leaks in their streets. Water often streams down busy Dolomite Drive.
Botha Street in Fochville is another road plagued by this problem, where water spewing from the sidewalk next to house No. 16 has leaked for months.
“It has been leaking since October last year. I contacted the municipality, but they never came to fix it,” says the owner, Mr Shadrack Masiu.
The leak seems to come from a water meter that someone stole on the sidewalk. “People from the municipality drive past here daily but do not stop. The next thing they will ask me to pay for the leaking water. We have lived here for 23 years but never had problems like this,” Masiu lamented.
According to information revealed at the Special Council Meeting of 28 February, water losses cost the municipality over R55 million in the five months leading up to November 2023. The projected money lost to water leaks this financial year is expected to rise to over R107 million.
Meanwhile, the R12.7 million the municipality forfeited for failing to spend it could have addressed at least some water leaks. The money was part of a Water Services Infrastructure Grant (WSIG) and was returned to the National Treasury because the municipality did not utilise it.
If the municipality had made more effort to plug water leaks, it could have used the money it saved as a down payment on the municipality’s considerable Rand Water bill of over R800 million, for which the latter is now cutting residents’ water supply.
