Johannesburg Water saves R700 million
JOBURG - Phase-I of the City of Johannesburg Water Infrastructure Upgrade and Renewal Project to the value of R1.7 billion, is saving R700 million for the city.
Johannesburg Water managing director Lungile Dhlamini said the project, which commenced in Soweto in 2004, aimed at tackling massive physical losses from pipe leakages and burst pipes, and commercial losses from deemed consumption at a flat rate to prepaid metering through fixing and repairing internal plumbing and pipe replacement.
“Before the implementation of Phase-I in Soweto, about 40 percent of the water supplied to Soweto was lost through physical (pipe leakages) and commercial losses (cost recovery).
“As a result of the intervention, the average water consumption dropped from 66 kilolitres per household per month to 12 kilolitres, an improvement of more than 80 percent. Prior to the project, Johannesburg Water purchased 469 billion litres per annum from Rand Water for the entire city, of which 129 billion litres (27.5 percent) per annum were supplied to Soweto,” Dhlamini said.
He said the city is currently buying 573 billion litres per annum of which 131 (23 percent) are supplied to Soweto. Dhlamini said about 90 percent of water supplied to Soweto was billed on a flat rate of R169 per household per month regardless of the amount of water consumed with only 15 percent of flat rate payments.
He said, “Johannesburg Water expects to save about R222 million per annum (equivalent to 40.5 billion litres per annum) from bulk purchases when Phase-I of the project nears completion in December.
“R1.1 billion of the R1.7 billion has been invested since 2004. The project will be extended to other deemed consumption areas (unmetered areas billed on a flat rate) including Orange Farm and Ivory Park. The main objective is to change the behaviour of water consumers to conserve water and pay for the water consumed through prepaid metering.”
Dhlamini also stated that the water reconciliation strategy study conducted by the National Water Resource Planning of the Department of Water and Sanitation forecasts that water demand will outstrip supply by 2020 if consumers do nothing to conserve water.
