by Teboho | Nov 14, 2024 | Media Statements 2024
14 November 2024
STRICTLY UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 15 NOVEMBER AT 09:00
Media Statement
Johannesburg Water to continue operations on illegal water connections in Emndeni, Soweto
Johannesburg Water will proceed with its planned operation to disconnect illegal water connections in Emndeni, Soweto (Region D) on Friday, 15 November 2024. This follows a similar operation in the Phumla Mqashi area on Tuesday, 13 November.
The operation is part of Johannesburg Water’s ongoing efforts to address the challenges posed by unauthorised connections, which undermine the integrity of the city’s water network and contribute to water wastage.
Given the potential risks associated with this operation, including possible community resistance and unrest among affected residents, Johannesburg Water is reviewing security measures to ensure the safety of employees and the success of the operation.
To support these efforts, Johannesburg Water Security, along with the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD), South African Police Service (SAPS), and Public Order Policing Services (POPS), will be on standby.
These precautions are in place to ensure a safe, effective operation while addressing the critical issue of illegal water connections.
The meeting point will be Avalon Prepayment Depot, 1 Calendula Road, Klipspruit West (opposite the Pikitup Depot) at 09:00.
For media queries, contact Nombuso Shabalala on 083 604 4072.
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Issued by Johannesburg Water Communication and Marketing.
by Teboho | Nov 13, 2024 | Media Statements 2024
Media Release
For Immediate Release
13 November 2024
Johannesburg Water confirms that the Constitutional Court precinct has no water supply challenges
Johannesburg Water has learned of a media statement sent from the Office of the Chief Justice about water operations hampering the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) from 1 November 2024
Johannesburg Water confirms that they have been in constant contact with the maintenance personnel from the ConCourt. The Office of the Executive Mayor together with Johannesburg Water JW visited the Concourt today to establish the information contained in the statement.
The City of Johannesburg team met the facility and operation manager who confirmed that the Joburg Water team has been available to provide assistance where there are supply challenges in the system.
They further confirmed that there is piped water currently and there are no supply challenges.
Furthermore, Johannesburg Water and the ConCourt have established an operational arrangement to escalate any water related issue or for assistance as and when required. As such there has been no request for assistance with water tanking. Johannesburg Water has a good working relationship with the maintenance department of the constitutional court and when there is a requirement or request for alternative water supply, the Johannesburg Water Onsite Inspector has always been available to the court.
The Johannesburg Water Onsite Inspector and the management of the Southdale Depot have consistently been available to the court, when there is a need or request for alternative water supply.
Accordingly, the cordial relationship between Councourt and Joburg Water is officially confirmed by a number of appreciation correspondences received by Joburg Water from the Office of the Chief Justice.
Johannesburg Water and by extension the City of Johannesburg, maintains a positive working relationship with the ConCourt, however we remain concerned by the correspondence that is causing a panic when there established dedicated platform to the Concourt so that the business of this important continues seamlessly.
END
Enquiries: Chris Vondo
Spokesperson for the Executive Mayor
Contact details: 079 851 9908 or email mediaqueries@joburg.org.za
by Teboho | Nov 12, 2024 | Media Statements 2024
12 November 2024 – 16:00
Media Statement
Johannesburg Water halts illegal connection operation in Lenasia as residents retaliate
Johannesburg Water had to call off a planned disconnection operation shortly after it began this morning in Phumla Mqashi informal settlement, in Lenasia South.
This operation was part of the Entity’s ongoing efforts to address the substantial challenges posed by unauthorised connections to the city’s water network, which are also a major contributor to water losses, and escalating the non-revenue water.
Johannesburg Water was accompanied by JMPD officials. However, the operation was met with hostility and was abandoned shortly after it began. Community members mobilised and a stand-off ensued between JPMPD and community members, who blocked off the two main entrances into the area the disconnections were taking place.
Residents then threw rocks at Johannesburg Water and JMPD officials, who used rubber bullets to disperse the angry crowd. The operation was subsequently called off.
Protestors also barricaded a section of the Golden Highway between Wimbledon and Sheffield Street in Lenasia South and Phumla Mqashi.
Phumla Mqashi, an area without a formal water supply infrastructure, was initially served by water tanks to meet residents’ needs. However, due to ongoing land invasions and subsequent illegal water connections, these tanks were vandalised, leading to increased strain on the local water supply network.
Johannesburg Water’s Operations team will discuss a way forward regarding implementing disconnections following the incident, as well as restoring water tank services in the area to assist in maintaining basic services for the community.
Ends
Issued by: Johannesburg Water Communication and Marketing.
by Teboho | Nov 11, 2024 | Media Statements 2024
11 November 2024
Joint statement by the Ministry of Water and Sanitation, Gauteng Office of the Premier, City of Johannesburg and Rand Water on water challenges in Johannesburg
Residents of Johannesburg have been experiencing increasingly frequent interruptions to their daily water supply. This causes great hardship for residents and is an impediment to economic growth in the City.
On Sunday, 10 November 2024, the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Ms Pemmy Majodina, convened an urgent meeting to address the challenges of water in the City of Johannesburg. The meeting was attended by the Gauteng Premier, Mr Panyaza Lesufi, the Deputy Ministers of Water and Sanitation, Mr David Mahlobo and Mr Sello Seitlholo, the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs in Gauteng MEC, Mr Jacob Mamabolo, the Executive Mayor of Johannesburg, Mr Dada Morero and the leadership of Rand Water.
The meeting reached unanimous agreement on the causes of the water supply interruptions and what needs to be done to restore a stable water supply to the residents of Johannesburg.
Johannesburg Water, which is an entity of the City, buys treated water from Rand Water and supplies it to the residents of the City. Rand Water in turn buys raw, untreated water from the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS). Rand Water abstracts raw water from the Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS), which consists of 19 interconnected dams, including major dams such as the Vaal Dam, the Sterkfontein Dam, and the Katse and Mohale Dams in Lesotho.
Rand Water treats the raw water so that it meets drinking water quality standards, stores it in bulk storage reservoirs, and pumps it into the municipality’s reservoirs. From the municipal storage reservoirs, the water either flows under the force of gravity or is pumped through various distribution pipelines to households and industries across the city.
To ensure a continuous reliable supply of water to users even in times of drought, DWS sets a limit on the amount of raw water that Rand Water is allowed to abstract annually from the Integrated Vaal River System. The limit is currently 1802 million cubic metres of water per annum.
The demand for water in Johannesburg has grown and continues to grow as a result of economic growth and population growth. DWS anticipated this growth in demand and put in place plans to address it as far back as the 1980’s, through the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), which supplies additional water into the IVRS from the Katse and Mohale dams built in the mountains in Lesotho.
The first phase of the LHWP was completed in 2003 and delivers 780 million cubic metres of water into the IVRS per year. Construction of the second phase of LHWP, to deliver a further 490 million cubic metres of water per annum into the IVRS from the new Polihali Dam in Lesotho, commenced in late 2022 and is due to be completed by 2028.
In anticipation of the completion of the second phase of the LHWP in 2028, Rand Water is implementing a R35 billion five-year rolling capital works programme, which includes increasing both storage capacity and water treatment capacity. To date, Rand Water has increased the capacity of its Zuikerbosch Water Treatment Plant by 150 million litres per day, at a cost of R3.5 billion. Rand Water is planning to implement further upgrades of the Zuikerbosch Water Treatment Plant, to increase its capacity by a further 450 million litres per day by 2028.
The amount of water that Rand Water can abstract from the system is not being affected by the current closure of the Lesotho Highlands Tunnel for maintenance. The Vaal Dam is currently approximately 33% full. If and when its level drops to 18%, water will be released from other dams in the system, including the Sterkfontein Dam, to increase the amount of water in the Vaal Dam.
Rand Water is already abstracting water from the IVRS at the limit set by DWS, and will not be able to abstract any more water until the second phase of LHWP starts providing additional water into the IVRS from 2028. Rand Water is therefore not able to supply any more water to municipalities in Gauteng than it is currently supplying.
The main underlying cause of the water supply disruptions in Johannesburg is therefore that the peak demand for water is close to, and occasionally exceeds, the available supply from Rand Water. The demand-supply relationship for treated water in Johannesburg is very tight and the system is vulnerable to disturbances caused by electro-mechanical breakdowns or spikes in demand caused by heatwaves.
In addition to the completion of the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Project, the meeting agreed that the City of Johannesburg must reduce the leaks in its water distribution system and complete its current projects to construct more reservoirs and pumping stations to make its water distribution system more resilient to electro-mechanical breakdowns or spikes in demand.
The 2023 No Drop report issued by DWS found that water losses in Johannesburg were 35%, compared to the international norm of 15%. Reducing water losses requires a multi-pronged approach by the City, including amongst others, improving billing and revenue collection to increase the funds available for maintenance and to provide better incentives for water to be used efficiently, improving
pressure management, replacing ageing pipes which burst frequently, and installing water meters or replacing dysfunctional bulk and customer water meters so that water flows can be measured accurately to determine the location of the losses.
Johannesburg Water presented the measures which it is implementing, which include:
a) 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.
b) Procurement of a panel of contractors for emergency repairs of large diameter pipe water leaks as well as increasing the number of teams on standby during the week to attend to leaks and burst pipes.
c) Increasing the number of repair and maintenance teams on duty during the weekend with the aim of improving leak repair response times from 48 hours to 24 hours.
d) Increasing the number of trucks available to its leak repair and maintenance teams.
e) Implementing cut-offs of illegal connections in key informal settlements.
f) Implementing advanced pressure management systems, including the installation of 45 Smart Pressure Controllers (pressure reducing valves), in addition to the 15 which have been refurbished and retrofitted to date. This is aimed at reducing water losses at night when demand is low, which will substantially reduce water losses.
g) Accelerating leak detection (to date, 12 100km water pipelines have been surveyed and 2 396 burst pipes, 6 727 leaking meters, 442 leaking valves and 259 leaking hydrants were identified and repaired.) This intervention has provided an estimated water demand reduction of 9 457 million litres per annum.
h) Working with the National Treasury to put in place a Public Private Partnership for the reduction of non-revenue water, to mobilize private sector funding and expertise for reducing non-revenue water.
The meeting noted and strongly supported the approval by the Johannesburg City Council of a turnaround strategy for Joburg Water. The turnaround strategy includes ring-fencing of revenues from the sale of water for the water function, as well as creating single-point accountability for the water function in the City. The intention is to give Joburg Water control over all the functions related to managing water supply in the City, so that it can be held accountable. Even after the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Project comes on stream, Gauteng’s long-term water consumption will need to be carefully managed, because there are limits to which further phases
of LHWP or other water transfer projects can continue to provide additional water to Gauteng at an affordable cost.
The 2023 No Drop report found that the average consumption of water in Gauteng is 279 litres per person per day. This is 60% above the world average of 173 litres per person per day, which is an anomaly given that South Africa is a water-scarce country with limited sustainable water resources and amongst the top 30 driest countries globally.
To address this, DWS, Rand Water, the provincial government and all the municipalities in Gauteng are working together with civil society leaders, business leaders and experts to implement a large-scale communications and awareness campaign regarding the need to use water more sparingly. The meeting noted that an independent body called the Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng has been
established to manage this campaign and that, as a first step, a dashboard has been created on the DWS website to provide the public with detailed information on the status of water supply in Gauteng.
The political leadership in the three spheres of government are confident that these measures will be implemented with the necessary urgency. It was agreed that similar meetings will be held every Sunday to monitor progress.
END
by Teboho | Nov 7, 2024 | Media Statements 2024
7 November 2024 – 11:45
Media Advisory
Invite: Update on the state of water supply in the City of Johannesburg
Members of the media are invited to join a virtual press briefing on the current state of water supply in the City of Johannesburg.
The purpose of the briefing is to provide members of the media with an update on the water challenges, new developments that have taken place, as well as the mitigation strategies that the Entity has in place to manage the situation.
Members of the media will also be given an opportunity to ask questions and engage with relevant officials.
Date: Friday, 8 November 2024
Time: 12:00 – 13:00
Platform: MS Teams (link to be shared upon confirmation)
To confirm attendance, please contact nombuso.shabalala@jwater.co.za or
nolwazi.dhlamini@jwater.co.za / 078 606 5665
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Issued by: Johannesburg Water Communication and Marketing.
by Teboho | Nov 7, 2024 | Media Statements 2024
7 November 2024
Response to Eskom claims of Johannesburg Water providing incorrect information regarding Palmiet power failure
Johannesburg Water expected its Midrand and Sandton systems, which are supplied from the Palmiet Rand Water station, to recover considerably overnight on Monday, 4 November 2024. However, our systems did not recover as expected.
Palmiet station is Rand Water’s infrastructure and Johannesburg Water relies solely on feedback from Rand Water to appraise its customers, residents and stakeholders on all supply challenges.
Johannesburg Water is transparent in all water supply challenges and takes full responsibility for all its own system failures.
Issued by Johannesburg Water Communication and Marketing
Media queries:
Nondumiso Mabuza
Executive Manager: Stakeholder Relations and Communication
Nondumiso.mabuza@jwater.co.za
060 555 3156
