Businesses at Carlswald Decor Centre and schools in Midrand have told Sowetan how the recent water supply challenges made them lose business, while parents were left angry after being told to pick up their children just after they have dropped them off.
Midrand is one of the areas that has had no water for the past few days, and while supply was restored in some parts of Midrand yesterday morning, businesses have lamented how they lost a chance of making money at the weekend, as it was month end and people had money.
Chumani Sango, bar manager at Perere restaurant, said the situation forced customers to turn back during a busy month-end weekend because the bathrooms could not be used.
“It affected us a lot because our customers had to turn back. You can imagine sending customers away on a busy month-end weekend,” Sango said.
“We lost a lot of money and on top of that, we had to make sure we had water. We were collecting water from the Johannesburg Water depot, which was very strenuous for our staff.”
At Luxx Restobar, manager Falala Nkosi said hygiene concerns forced them to hire two mobile toilets at a cost of R1,500 a day. They had the toilets from Saturday until yesterday. “We had to hire the toilets because hygiene for our customers is very important,” Nkosi said.
The water crisis also affected schools.
A Midrand school principal, who asked not to be named, said learners were sent home on Monday.
“We had no choice but to send messages to parents early in the morning because there was no water at the school,” the principal said.
He said while some parents were understanding, as they also did not have water at home, others were angry at having to be called to school, shouting at the teachers and asking why they were not told the previous day not send their children to school.
“Some of the parents wanted to fight with educators about sending a short notice message to come collect their children in the morning,” said the principal.
Yesterday, Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero said the city is fixing reservoirs and water should be running soon after a week of supply challenges in Midrand.
Speaking in Midrand yesterday, Morero said reservoir levels were slowly recovering after a leak and system disruptions.
According to Morero, water supply problems began on January 26 when Rand Water carried out emergency repairs at the Palmiet pump station, which required shutting down critical pump infrastructure.
The repairs were expected to be completed quickly, but technical and operational delays prolonged the process, he said.
“The system was further destabilised on January 31 when another power failure hit the Palmiet pump station, causing water levels at the Klipfontein reservoir, which supplies Midrand, to fall to critically low levels. A leak at the reservoir was identified on February 1, with repairs and commissioning completed by February 2 and restoring stability to the system,” Morero said.
According to Rand Water, its systems have fully recovered and pumping is at full capacity, but they are aware of the slow recovery of water supply in Midrand, Tembisa in Ekurhuleni, and Laudium and Atteridgeville in Tshwane.
“While some supply interruptions are being experienced in Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, these are minimal compared to the more significant disruption affecting Midrand,” said spokesperson Makenosi Maroo.
“Rand Water is continually engaging the metros to find solutions. The Midrand area has a long-standing problem of high water consumption, worsened by the growth of formal and informal settlements. This problem is well understood by Johannesburg Water and the entity has embarked on upgrading the Midrand systems.”
Sowetan
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