Local businesses have been in contact with DA councillors, urgently requesting help to try and find a solution to the water shortage.
“If solutions aren’t found, these businesses could lose millions and see profits dry up, which will result in retrenchments and a loss of jobs,” explains Bruna Haipel, the DA shadow MMC for Water and Energy.
In a statement released by Haipel, she states that the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) has taken the recent drought conditions and warning signs too lightly and residents are now paying the price.
“Beyond the effect of water shortages on businesses, people in poor communities find themselves queuing for hours at tanks hoping to fill their buckets before the tankers also run dry,” she says.
Haipel adds that reservoirs should have been monitored to make sure they did not go below 50% and water restrictions should have been in place when the metro saw that a shortage was imminent.
The supply chain management is not making sure that the bid committee goes out to tender on time and appoints leak-fix contractors. “This has caused great delays in the fixing of leaks, resulting in unnecessary water losses,” says Haipel.
According to her, the DA has been extremely critical of the low performance and lack of spending by the Department of Water and Sanitation.
“The underspending of over R166-million on the repairs and maintenance budget has been an issue of great concern, as this money could have gone a long way towards alleviating the massive 36% unaccounted-for water loss in the metro.
“While drought conditions are undoubtedly placing constraints on our already scarce water supply, the dismal planning of a badly run organisation at the helm of the EMM is leading this metro towards disaster.”
Themba Gadebe, spokesman for the metro, says the metro is monitoring levels in their water reservoirs and implementing restrictions where necessary, with the aim of getting levels to rise.
“These are implemented by either reducing the water pressure or by shutting off supply at certain times,” Gadebe says.
