Parched throats and dry taps. Ramadan is set to be a trying time for Johannesburg residents as the city battles ongoing water woes. They say they have been abandoned, as they accuse the metro’s water provider of having no grip on the situation.
“Joburg Water has lost control of the issue,” said Dr Ferrial Adam, executive member at WaterCAN. “They’re chasing it,” she said, instead of tackling the issue head-on.
More than 300 000 residents have had to contend with more than a week of no water. Their taps dried out ten days ago, when a lightning strike caused the Eikenhof pump station to grind to a halt.
Another outage – this one on Sunday – prolonged their misery as it caused reservoirs to be depleted yet again. Affected areas included Roodepoort and Randburg.
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No time for politics
Adam said it was high time stakeholders in government, the city as well as Rand Water and Joburg Water set politics aside and focused on getting taps running again. This, she urged, should include the general public.
“This is not the time for games or politics. Peoples’ lives are on the line. We have to all come together and find a solution that works together,” she pressed.
Accusing officials of neglecting residents, she said it was difficult to get through to them as they saw residents more as “minions on the side” than anything else.
“They’re seeing us as an annoyance; they’re seeing us as being confrontational and we’re not. We really just want to get all the solutions on the table. More important than that, we want to know what is going on,” she said.
Councillors met with executive mayor Kabelo Gwamanda on Tuesday night. A closed valve on Rand Water’s side appeared to be the problem, but Gwamanda’s spokesperson denied it was the reason for no improvement.
But Adam said all people really wanted were answers: “Today it’s a lightning strike, tomorrow the reservoir is empty. Just explain it to people so that we all know”.
She said collaboration between stakeholders could help get to the bottom of the issue. Engineers, she suggested, could be brought on to offer their expertise and residential associations could assist by keeping track of leaks and reporting them when they happened.
