Johannesburg Water, which supplies 1.6-billion litres of drinkable water a day procured from bulk supplier Rand Water, says it is building sufficient storage capacity amid claims that the water utility is battling a management crisis.
This follows recent water outages in the City of Johannesburg that affected institutions such as the Charlotte Maxeke and Rahima Moosa hospitals.
A patient at Helen Joseph Hospital made headlines after ordering 10l of water online and having it delivered to his bed as the provincial hospital battled water outages for almost a week last month.
Johannesburg Water says interruptions in water supplies were caused by “below-average inflow of water from our bulk water supplier, Rand Water” and to “power failure at the Rand Water Eikenhof pump station”.
In a media statement last month, Rand Water said a power failure at the Eikenhof system affected pumping capacity, but it had made progress in installing generators at its “main booster pumping stations such as Eikenhof”.
Rand Water spokesperson Justice Mohale told Business Day that operations were now continuing normally and referred questions to Johannesburg Water.
Johannesburg Water spokesperson Nondumiso Mabuza said: “The recovery at our Crosby, Brixton and Hursthill reservoirs is going well as bulk supply from Rand Water has now stabilised to accepted flows.” She said supply to Helen Joseph and Rahima Moosa hospitals had “also stabilised without pumping from tankers”.
She said water supply was not intermittent and there was no longer poor water pressure, “especially in the high-lying areas of Coronationville, Westbury, Sophiatown, Melville and Westdene.
“As the system continues to recover, we are building sufficient storage capacity, which will ensure stable water supply.”
Sputnik Ratau, spokesperson for the national department of water & sanitation, said the water outages were a result of recent load-shedding.
“Once there is load-shedding, the water pumps can’t work. It’s not like there is a water shortage. No, it’s just that water can’t be pumped if there is no power,” said Ratau.
The Joburg metro has a population of more than 5-million, which is expected to increase to about 6.9-million by 2029. This could put a strain on the city’s capacity to ensure a continuous water supply to residents and businesses.
Jolidee Matongo, the city’s member of the mayoral committee for finance, in May unveiled the metro’s R73.3bn budget for the 2021/2022 financial year. He said Johannesburg Water expects an operational surplus of R1.2bn in the new financial year, “with an expenditure budget of R13.4bn”.
The metro’s water utility was allocated a further R3.3bn multiyear capital budget.
Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union regional chair Keith Swanepoel said Johannesburg universities were affected by water outages.
“The information we are getting from our members who work for Johannesburg Water is that it seems there is a bit of a management problem in Johannesburg Water in ensuring proper and continuous supply of water to residents and economic sectors,” he said.
On its website, Johannesburg Water says it has a water distribution network of 12,288km, 127 reservoirs and water towers and 37 water pump stations.
Meanwhile, Mduduzi Shabangu, Ekurhuleni’s head of water & sanitation, said the municipality had not experienced any water outages.
“We are building 29 reservoirs because we realised that water supply and storage could be a problem in future. The reservoirs will increase the metro’s water storage capacity to 635 megalitres per day,” Shabangu said.
He said the metro had set aside about R1bn for the project, which is expected to be completed by February 2022.
Ekurhuleni supplies about 941 megalitres of water a day and is a major industrial hub.
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