By Mark Ogagan
Severe water outages that saw residents of Johannesburg scrambling for water over the last five days could persist even further as Rand Water starts its maintenance work on Friday morning.
Rand Water’s maintenance work, which could last up to 86 hours is expected to worsen the supply situation in the City of Johannesburg.
The work will start at 07h00 Friday morning on the Zwartkopjes and Eikenhof water systems. They both supply Johannesburg with water.
Areas that are will be affected include Randburg, Roodepoort, Soweto, Johannesburg central, Parktown and Aeroton.
Rand Water spokesperson Makenosi Maroo says, “The maintenance work is typically scheduled during periods of low demand. December is particularly suitable for such work due to the closure of industries and by extension, the temporary depopulation of Gauteng province as residents travel for holidays.
“This timing also allows for quicker system recovery once the maintenance is completed. Rand Water has issued a 21-day notice to all affected municipal customers and industries.”
Water Community Action Network (WaterCAN) says Johannesburg residents cannot endure another supply cut-off.
Executive Manager Dr Ferrial Adam suspects that the water challenges could be prolonged as reservoirs take time to fill after maintenance.
“Problem is for the last two to three weeks, Joburgers have had intermittent supply of water. When they finish their maintenance, they have to wait for the water to fill up the reservoirs.
“Our reservoirs are going to run dry quickly because most of them are leaking and it will take days for them to refill that means that people will not have water for an extended period of time because the chances are that over Christmas people are going to have water challenges.”
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