PHUTI MOSOMANE
GAUTENG residents in many parts of the province were left without any water due to a power failure at Rand Water’s Zuikerbosch purification plant.
On Wednesday, Rand Water said technicians have since been dispatched to attend to the problem.
However, late in the afternoon Johannesburg Water Agency said the power failure at Rand Water’s Zuikerbosch purification plant has been resolved.
“The purification plant is in the process of regaining normal operations. Once the plant is back online, pumping will resume to the various pump stations which were impacted by the reduced capacity from earlier this morning,” Johannesburg Water said in a statement.
It also announced that it planned water interruptions on Thursday (9 March) in Naledi Ext 2, and Protea North.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng said it is demanding that Rand Water urgently put a turnaround strategy in place to address the constant failure of their infrastructure.
“It is high time that Rand Water comes clean and informs the residents what they are going to do to fix, maintain and refurbish their electrical infrastructure, as it is severely impacting residents across the province,” said DA Gauteng spokesperson for Infrastructure Development Nico De Jager.
This negatively impacts pumping at the following pumping stations:
Zwartkopjes by 75%: supplies water to Midrand and Tshwane areas,
Eikenhof by 20%: supplies water to the South of Johannesburg, including Crosby, Hursthill and the Commando system.
Palmietfontein by 20%: supplies water to the East and North East of the province (Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Ekurhuleni).
Mapleton by 20%: supplies water to Midrand and Tshwane areas.
De Jager said this is a trend which is now deeply worrying given that Zuikerbosch is Rand Water’s biggest plant and is responsible for more than 60% of the water from Rand Water.
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