The water disruptions that affected residents of Midrand in Joburg, Tembisa in Ekurhuleni, and Laudium and Atteridgeville in Tshwane, have underscored the risks faced by our water supply system.
The acute shortage of drinking water was particularly reaching worrying levels in Midrand where businesses were on Tuesday counting the losses in income and the health risks posed. The area had gone without water supply for more than five days, with some residents claiming as long as a week.
The result was that parents in some schools were called to fetch their children soon after dropping them off due to the severity of the problem and non-functioning boreholes.
A manager at one of the restaurants in Carlswald told this publication that they were forced to hire mobile toilets, incurring extra costs to run the business, due to hygiene concerns. The situation, which according to Joburg mayor Dada Morero surfaced when Rand Water was carrying emergency repairs, has served as a harsh reminder of the crisis we could find ourselves in.
Running water is a necessity and its shortage hits people hard, including those who care for the elderly. Yet in Johannesburg, water cuts are becoming a norm with communities often left frustrated with the response by the city to their plight. Without water, households cannot function normally and businesses suffer great losses.
What happened in Midrand and other areas therefore cannot be seen as an isolated event. The truth is for far too many times we have been told that a water crisis was because of a reservoir leak. These leaks are often because of poor maintenance and aging infrastructure which battles to cope with increasing demands of fast-developing areas such as Midrand.
While Joburg Water has said it has begun upgrading the Midrand water system, this appears to have taken too long to complete, leading to the latest crisis.
A matter of major concern is that the City of Joburg is often slow to react to the plight of the people affected by these unexpected water shortages. We can no longer afford to pay lip service to prioritising repair and maintenance work of our water infrastructure.
It is time that we demand to see action from our municipal leaders to fix water supply problems or risk plunging our communities into even deeper water crisis.
Blaming consumers for high water consumption whenever there is a shortage is simply disingenuous and shifting responsibility. The fact remains that far more water is lost before it even reaches households.
