The RV House factory in Lyn Road was overflowed with all things sewage on 19 June.
General manager Lorraine Lee called in the complaint to Joburg Water at 10am on 19 June. According to her, they said they would attend in 24 hours, “despite the health risk.”
Joburg Water acting marketing and communications, David Sibiya commented, “Our team was duly dispatched within six hours (at 3.30pm) to clear the blockage. Unfortunately, they found the gates at the factory locked, and they could not gain any access.”
The company claimed that no one had come the whole weekend. The factory had an employee stay at the property the entire weekend to ensure the Joburg Water inspector could gain access.
Lee said, “I spoke to a manager [22June], he said that they didn’t come because they had to fix the main drain which was in our road.” She further added, “I told him in no uncertain terms that we had a reference number given by them, and why did they not attend to the call as they were in the area.”
Joburg Water has claimed that they were only able to gain access on 22 June when they cleared the blockage and started clearing the area. Upon inspection, “[We] discovered that there is a storm water drainage system that is illegally connected into our sewer infrastructure, and as a result this caused a back-flow that caused the property to flood,” said Sibiya.
Lee stated, “We only bought this building a year ago; it was like this when we got here.”
Joburg Water cautioned and instructed them to disconnect the storm water connection, as this is in contravention of municipal bylaws, and to prevent future problems. Lee responded that this problem has occurred several times since the company has been there, “Why did they not tell us this before?”
“Our factory had been flooded with faeces the whole weekend. This just shows how useless the Joburg Water department actually is,” concluded Lee.
The issue, according to Joburg Water, had been cleared and fixed on 23 June.
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Joburg Water cannot confirm when water will return in Blairgowrie
