The dry taps should start running again in Randburg by Friday afternoon, according to Logan Munsamy, the manager of water operations at Johannesburg Water.
Munsamy was speaking at a media briefing in Newtown, Johannesburg, earlier on Friday. The media briefing was also attended by City of Johannesburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda.
After numerous suburbs in the city went without water for more than a week, the mayor of Johannesburg called the briefing to reassure the citizens.
Gwamanda said the water system was in “better condition than it was last week”.
Systems are recovering
He claimed that all systems were recovering, but he did not disclose how many suburbs were still experiencing the water outage.
Gwamanda denied that there was a water crisis in the City of Johannesburg.
The mayor stated: “We were having a technical issue; that is natural.
“We responded with mitigating measures, like sending in water tankers, but we are not even close to assuming it’s a crisis. We have access to water.”
He apologised to the residents who were suffering from the water crisis and reminded them that the City of Johannesburg had no control over the weather.
“We have noted the concerns raised by residents; these have been committed to and attended to with urgency.”
Infrastructure backlog
Meanwhile, Ntshavheni Mukwevho, the managing director at Johannesburg Water, said the city is dealing with the issue of old infrastructure.
Mukwevho spoke about the R27-billion infrastructure backlog.
“We do have water; it is just pumping at poor pressure. The city has more than 12 500km of water pipes, some of them older than 70,” Mukwevho said.
Mukwevho added that when there are outages, airlocks in the system create pipe bursts.
“We invest R1-billion annually for the renewal and replacement of assets. If we look at asset-based good practice, we should be investing R3-billion in assets annually. The gap creates the backlog.
“We are having discussions within the city to see how we could work with the private sector to help plug the gap.”
