Issued by Cllr Michael Crichton – DA Johannesburg Caucus Deputy Chairperson
For the past five days and counting the residents that receive their water
supply from the South Hills Water Tower, areas such as South Hills,
Linmeyer, Risana, Tulisa Park, Moffat View, parts of Oakdene and parts
Rosettenville, have not had any water running through their taps.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Johannesburg has taken this issue up with
Johannesburg Water, but they have been vague at best with their explanation.
They have informed us of poor supply coming from Rand Waters side and that
there’s “high consumption”.
What is also of concern is that the South Hills water tower seems to be one of the
worst affected water towers in terms of lengthy water outages in the South of
Johannesburg and that also needs investigating. What is also of concern is that
Rand Water’s Meyershill reservoir has been out of commission for the past two to
three years.
We have been fighting this issue for four years now and we will continue to fight
for our residents until there is a permanent solution to the prolonged water
outages the community faces. We will be submitting questions for the Member of
the Mayoral Committee for Infrastructure, Councillor Jack Sekwaila to answer, we
will submit a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application and we
will be bringing a motion to Council demanding a full investigation into this crisis
which will include but not be limited to engaging the National Government on a
long-term solution.
The DA will always champion the rights of residents, especially whilst an uncaring
government is at the head of the City of Johannesburg. We will hold those
responsible for these disastrous outages to account.