Resident demands Joburg Water to fix their mess
SANDRINGHAM – Joburg Water has blamed the burst pipe to ageing infrastructure.
A Sandringham resident claims that the City of Johannesburg’s water supply entity, Joburg Water (JW), is failing to deliver on its duties.
Max Wijtenburg of 5 Edward Street in Sandringham said Joburg Water has been coming to his property to fix the same water leak for six years in the same place. He said that they came back again on 3 January to fix the same problem on his property’s pavement, adding that it is ‘unacceptable’.
“A team of five people arrived and brought a massive yellow trench-digging machine to dig into the pavement,” Wijtenburg said.
“The machine was two or three times the size of what is needed or can fit the profile of the intended job. The next thing that happened is that the road kerbing got totally wrecked and demolished.”
According to him, when the team left the site, the pavement was turned completely ‘upside down’ with heaps of mud spread over the road and half a metre of deep furrows from the trench digger’s tyres. “At the same time, a new two-metre tall tree I had planted next to my driveway was smashed in half.”
Wijtenburg said during the last five years, excluding this year in January, this pipe has had six leaks which had to be repaired and, in the process, his two driveways had been dug up. “Each time JW leaves it’s in a complete shambles of mud and holes and then we get told there is no cement to fix driveways.”
He added, “On 23 January, we wrote a letter to JW with councillor Lionel Greenberg suggesting that I will pay two labourers to dig a trench at my expense then JW can come to lay their new pipe – the result would be that the leaks [will] no longer happen and I get saved the agony of seeing my driveways and pavement vandalised each time by JW. And [so far] no response from either of them.”
He also questioned why the entity had to bring a machine that, according to him, belongs on a construction site for a mere water leak.
Isaac Dhludhlu, spokesperson for Joburg Water, said a TLB (tractor-loader-backhoe) machine (used to dig up hard, compact material, usually earth, or to lift heavy loads) was used to excavate a burst pipe and added that on the day in question, they were fixing a burst pipe. He blamed the burst pipe on ageing infrastructure.
According to Dhludhlu, each and every time they received the job cards, they sent a team to attend to the burst pipe, adding that it is not true that the burst pipe was never attended to.
“We have backfilling teams and bricklayers in our sections. If the customer is not happy, he/she must let us know so that we can resend the team and we will be able to make follow up phone calls to the customer until the customer is happy with the work done,” said Dhludhlu.
When contacted for comment, Ward 72 councillor Lionel Greenberg claimed to have been unaware of the letter sent to him by Wijtenburg.
Details: Johannesburg Water 011 688 1400.
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https://northeasterntribune.co.za/227837/joburg-water-jra-fast-tracking-reinstatement-road-surfaces/
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