Lesotho Highlands Water Project: When will maintenance be completed?

Maintenance work on phase one of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project is entering its final stages.

Water supply from the mountain kingdom was shut off in October to perform routine maintenance on 37km of the tunnel that feeds the Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS).

Dam levels have remained adequate enough to supply Gauteng, however, Rand Water have continued to warn residents to lower consumption.

Lesotho Highlands Water Project: Early completion by TCTA

The Lesotho Highlands Development Agency is the entity performing maintenance on the Lesotho end, while the Trans Caledon Tunnel Authority (TCTA) looks after South Africa’s interests.

Maintenance crews have been busy with general civic, electrical and mechanical work, while also adding corrosion protection to the relevant section of the the tunnel.

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The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) and TCTA are confident work in South Africa and Lesotho will be done on time.

“The repair work is planned to be completed on time as TCTA early completion date remains 18 March 2025,” TCTA media liaison Luzamo Sandlana told The Citizen.

“The organisation monitors the temperature and conditions inside the tunnel on a daily basis,” he added.

“There is a testing phase, however, this will not affect the water delivery as we need the water to do the tests,” Sandlana explained.

Gauteng municipal water usage

Rand Water releases weekly figures to illustrate the water usage of Gauteng’s three biggest metropolitan areas: Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.

The bulk water supplier distributes a set allocation to municipalities based on its licence with the DWS, although they have been granted a temporary licence to extracted more from the IVRS.

Tshwane’s allocation from Rand Water is set at 667 megalitres (ML) per day, with the city averaging roughly 800 ML per day since the start of the year.

Ekurhuleni is best at keeping their usage closest to the 1 022 ML per day allocation, generally fluctuating roughly 10 to 20 ML from that figure.

Johannesburg is the worst offender, often exceeding the daily allocation by 400 ML or more.

The only period in the last 12 months where Johannesburg dipped below their 1 356 ML allocation was during the mass water shutdown over the Reconciliation Day long weekend in December.  

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