Water woes in Westbury, Coronationville far from over

The water woes in Westbury, Coronationville and surrounding areas are far from over. Joburg Mayor Dada Morero says work will only commence on Monday. This despite the initial address to the community over a week ago that the City will try resolve the prolonged water problems by this Friday.

Residents say they are tired of promises and need to see action.

A water tanker remains stationed outside a hospital while residents flocked to the nearby hall to hear an address from Joburg Mayor Dada Morero.

“We made commitments that we would work throughout, and in the next seven days would come back, give them feedback, and we have seen an improvement in some areas where they started having water, and of course, other areas still affected, but though getting some water, but not consistent. So, there was an improvement,” says Morero.

Some residents expressed their disappointment that water will still not be running through their taps as they had initially hoped.

“Firstly, there was anger. But I think there’s a lot more questions than there are answers. So, he’s made these promises of Jojo tanks in particular points of a new pipeline, and if we ask, where’s the money for that? Then we get this long-winded answer of that we have to do rates and taxes for this, this and other. So, is this another empty promise, you know, like, don’t give us your seven days,” a resident said.

“It’s been hard because of the past few days … actually not even the past few days, the past few years, getting up and getting ready for every single day’s challenging, because there’s no water. You come back from school, there’s no water,” a resident explains.

Mayor Morero says infrastructure remains a major issue within the City of Johannesburg, even though a task team has been set up to tackle dry pipes.

Work to address the dry tap challenges is expected to commence on Monday.