The Department of Water and Sanitation has assured South Africans that the country is not running out of water.
This as Johannesburg Water will continue to throttle water supply between 9 pm and 4 am, to enable reservoir levels to recover.
The City intends to implement this continuously from 14 November until the system has fully recovered.
Johannesburg has seen increasing water supply disruptions due to amongst other challenges, increased demand.
The Department of Water and Sanitation says the main underlying cause of water supply disruptions in Johannesburg is that the peak demand for water is close to and occasionally exceeds the available supply from Rand Water.
It says the demand-supply relationship for treated water in Johannesburg is tight and the system remains vulnerable.
This comes as Rand Water is not able to supply any more water to municipalities in Gauteng than it already is.
Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina says Johannesburg Water aims to reduce water consumption to 175 litres per person per day, compared with the current rate of 270 litres per capita per day.
“Johannesburg water presented the measure which is implementable which includes, amongst others – throttling of water supply between 9 p.m and 4 a.m. This is in line with our restriction on level one to enable the reservoirs to recover overnight. If they don’t do that the reservoirs will not be able to fill up. So we’re doing that overnight. The city intends to implement this continuously from the 14th of November until the system is fully recovered.”
Johannesburg Water presents the measures it is implementing, which include the throttling of water supply between 9 pm and 4 am to enable reservoir levels to recover overnight.
The City intends to implement this continuously from 14 November until the system has fully recovered.
Other measures include:
- Procuring a panel of contractors for emergency repairs.
- Increasing the number of teams on standby during the week and weekend to attend to leaks and burst pipes.
Improving leak repair response times from 48 hours to 24 hours. - Increasing the number of trucks available to its leak repair and maintenance teams.
- Implementing cut-offs of illegal connections in key informal settlements.
- Reducing water losses at night when demand is low which will substantially reduce water losses.
- Accelerating leak detection.
- And working with the National Treasury to put in place a Public-Private Partnership for the reduction of non-revenue water.
But, while the department has acknowledged there is a crisis, it says there is no drought.
Minister Majodina says, “There is no drought but we are in a crisis. We can turn around. We need to adhere to water restrictions.”
The province is calling for the user-pay principle to be adhered to.
Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi says, “Our challenges will be less if we pay. We have to reduce the consumption at a faster pace or the system will not be able to carry us. We are far above the red line.”
