“Roodepoort North residents who are not connected to the new sewerage system yet, must contact me or the contractor as a matter of urgency,” said Ward 84’s councillor, Gert Niemand.
He added that residents who are not connected to the new system will experience huge problems in future. “The new system will be more effective and residents should allow the contractors from Johannesburg Water (JW) to access their properties. The upgrade is nearing completion as there are only a few individual properties that still need to be connected,” he said.
Gert conducted a site visit as well as walk-through of the neighbourhood on 11 May, with the contractors, a JW representative and the Design Engineer.“Overall, progress on the project looks good. There are no open trenches on the sidewalks, and most of the residents’ driveways, sidewalks and other property repairs have been completed, with only a few complaints,” Gert said.
The engineer, Ramolin Naidoo, confirmed that the project, although a bit overdue, was nearing completion. “Everything has been done, there are no open trenches or excavations. The main system is 100 per cent complete and all main lines are functional.
We do, however, struggle with some of the individual yard connections,” he said.
Residents were very unhappy with the system upgrade, and wanted to know why it was necessary. According to Naidoo, the old system – which was a mid block system – had many problems and challenges. “The old system connected a whole block of houses, and when there was a blockage, the whole block was affected. The new system only connects two houses at a time, which will improve service delivery turnaround times,” he said.
He added that, although the new system was the most difficult one, it was the most sustainable in the long term in terms of maintenance and access.
Ngobizitha Ndimande from JW confirmed this. “The new system will be on the outside of the residences, making it easier for us to access it for routine maintenance, and make repairs easier. With the old system we had a lot of challenges. Not only did people not always want to allow us access to their properties, but they also built structures on top of the manholes, making maintenance difficult,” he said.
Everyone was in agreement that the biggest challenge was residents who did not grant them access to their properties. “The main system is ready, but we cannot move on because of no access to some properties. Some properties pose different challenges by having more than one connection because of backyard dwellers, and they expect us to connect each one,” Naidoo said.
Gert experienced one of these case first-hand, when he saw four properties owned by one owner that had quite a few rented out rooms in their backyards. “This is a prime example of illegal water connections. According to the by-laws, we only provide one connection per property – we cannot cater for all the illegal connections made by backyard dwellers. I will take this matter up with the relevant parties,” he said.
After the completion of the site visit, Gert was satisfied that the project was on track for speedy completion, even though there were still a few issues. “The overall condition looks good. Reinstatements have been done well, and there are only a few problems here and there, which will be dealt with. If there are residents that are still not happy with completed repairs, they should contact the Client Liaison Officers, Sindiswa Ntloko on 072 098 4253, or Bongani Radebe on 078 443 1501. Alternatively, they can contact me,” he said.
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