The Johannesburg Roads Agency recently confirmed that they are no longer involved in the Joburg Water reinstatements.
The information was shared with various councillors and the entity during a meeting.
According to Faeeza Chame, ward 57 councillor, most people confuse them with potholes, but they are not the result of a natural defect in the road surface and are treated differently by JRA.
“Typically, the entity that digs the hole sends paperwork to JRA, who then fixes the reinstatement and bills the entity. However, due to the growing number of burst pipes and blocked sewers, JRA has decided that they can no longer repair Joburg Water reinstatements. They will continue to repair the reinstatements for other entities,” said Chame.
Chame said Joburg Water has three teams in the city that do reinstatements, but they can only do 400 per month.
“This is insufficient to keep up with current water bursts, let alone clear the backlog. Right now, very few are being reinstated, and in most cases, Joburg Water simply backfills with soil leaving them to sit for months and months.
“Clearly, the cycle of bursting old water pipes resulting in a reinstatement that takes months or years to repair has become a massive problem in the city,” said Chame.
Chame went on to say that the Region F.2 ward councilors have been at the forefront of pushing the entities to sort out the issue and find a solution.
“There are various reinstatements unfinished in Ward 57 alone, and that number grows by about 10 per month as more pipes burst and sewers are affected.
“I will request that a member of the mayoral committee visit the ward as soon as possible so that I can show them the reinstatements and map out the next steps for both a pipe replacement programme and repairing the roads and sidewalks dug up by Joburg Water.”
Chame concluded that it all comes down to logging Joburg Water reinstatements using the email address below.
“All Joburg Water reinstatements should be logged with customer@jwater.co.za so that you have an easy-to-find ref # and a paper trail for escalation.
“JRA’s hotline is hotline@jra.org.za is no longer accepting requests to repair/reinstate Joburg Water-dug holes and trenches.”
