Rand Water ‘has enough water supply, just not enough infrastructure’

People in areas supplied by Rand Water do not have to worry about a day zero when water supplies will run out, promises the water utility’s chief executive, Sipho Mosai.

However, he urged residents to use water sparingly and said the utility has a plan in place to curb the recent “water curtailments”.

Mosai said yesterday Rand Water had “more than enough water”.

He said Rand Water was aware of the issues of leaks and ageing infrastructure.

It was working closely with municipalities to repair and increase infrastructure and expected to spend R28 billion on maintaining infrastructure in next five years.

ALSO READ: Rand Water reiterates its call for Gauteng residents to use water sparingly

“We knew and we saw this coming many moons ago,” he said.

“This is a rolling five-year plan. We look at the demands from our municipalities and then we make a determination on what needs to be upgraded, refurbished and operated.”

He also said that since 2018, the water utility had been providing more water than was budgeted for, as Rand Water added 5% more water this quarter than planned because of heatwaves.

This after he noted that on average, the entity supplied more than 4 600 million litres of water a day to about 18 municipalities and 5 000 megalitres of water a day during their peak days.

Mosai also said without laying the blame on either consumers or municipalities, at least 30% of water usage is non-revenue water.

‘Rand Water has not reduced water’

Non-revenue water consists of leaks and illegal connections and more than 45% of the water end-users consume was used outdoors on things such as garden sprinklers.

He said the message Rand Water was trying to put across was for municipalities to impose bylaws on how to use water and for residents to use it sparingly because “every drop lost is a drop too much”.

Furthermore, Mosai said the increase in the volume of water demand has affected Rand Water’s financials, with their debtors’ days going from 30 to 80 days, which would impact the company’s ability to maintain infrastructure.

“Johannesburg has been able to pay in 30 days, on time, in Ekurhuleni the payment period is around 59 days,” he added.

He noted that Tshwane’s debt time was around 56 days and Emfuleni 237 days.

“Rand Water has not reduced water. We have just said beyond this, we need to look at curtailing the addition.

“If we empty all reservoirs there will be no water.

“This curtailment is to say there is just not enough infrastructure to add more water, or it will crash. Let us use what we have responsibility until we see rain and we reduce our water consumption. Let’s make sure this water is used sparingly.”

However, some frustrated residents said the authorities were ignoring the magnitude of the province’s water crisis.

Sophiatown’s Keletso Monaise said: “Either Rand Water is not being honest or the poor residents are once more suffering the consequences of a greedy and incompetent government.

“They keep saying we should use water sparingly but we are not the problem, I heard him on the radio talking about sprinklers but we barely have water to even bath or cook.”

ALSO READ: Rand Water blames municipalities for water crisis in Gauteng

Westbury, Brixton, Crosby, Hursthill, Coronationville, Northcliff and 12 other suburbs have joined a growing number of areas which have experienced water curtailments since Rand Water announced stage 2 water restrictions almost three weeks ago.

Meanwhile, following complaints about waste collection being behind schedule in areas serviced by the Marlboro depot, Pikitup spokesperson Muzi Mkhwanazi said: “A recovery plan has been set in motion and the affected depots will be working over the weekend.”

– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za