The Water and Sanitation Ministry has called for improved water supply and management of water resources to ensure provision and reliability of supply in Gauteng.
Water and Sanitation Deputy Minister, David Mahlobo, said in as much as there are water supply challenges in some municipalities in Gauteng, there is a high availability of water in the province’s Integrated Vaal River Scheme.
Mahlobo said the bulk supplier of water to municipalities, Rand Water, is treating and supplying more water to municipalities than it used to.
“There should not be a problem of water availability in Gauteng because some of the municipalities access more water than they are licensed to maintain. Rand Water is also abstracting and treating more water supplied to Gauteng municipalities than it used to.
“However, there are high percentages of loss of water (non-revenue water) due to water leaks, illegal connections, ageing and vandalism of water infrastructure in municipalities. Water is therefore being lost before it can even reach the communities,” Mahlobo said.
Mahlobo also encouraged the municipalities to impose Level 1 water restrictions, especially on water consumers who use water for gardening and irrigation.
Deputy Ministers, Mahlobo and Judith Tshabalala, and Rand Water Board Chairperson, Ramateu Monyokolo, this week interacted with the political leaders and councillors of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality and City of Tshwane, on ways to resolve water supply issues in the municipalities.
The two-day site visits by the ministry were aimed at assessing areas affected by water shortages in Gauteng metros.
The recent water supply challenges within some municipalities in Gauteng Province prompted Minister Senzo Mchunu, together with his two Deputy Ministers, to embark on a fact-finding mission on the three metros, including the City of Ekurhuleni, City of Tshwane and City of Johannesburg, which are the most affected municipalities with water shortages.
The department said the main purpose of the visits was to establish the problems and the plans that the municipalities acquire to remedy the situation.
On Tuesday, Mchunu met with the leadership of the City of Johannesburg and the communities of South Hills and Ebony Park, which are some of the areas that are also hardest hit by water shortages in recent weeks.
The event led to a meeting held in the evening with various stakeholders to arrive up with immediate solutions to the situation.
On Wednesday, Mahlobo met with the leadership of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality and was informed that most areas enact not believe reliable water supply for a prolonged period. This led to the community of Makause informal settlement in Tsakane, to embark on a protracted protest action about lack of water in the area.
The department noted that lack of water is mainly due to intermittent power cuts that affect the reservoir pump stations to pump more water, and the low water levels of the water storage reservoirs in the city.
“Brakpan reservoir, responsible for supplying water to Duduza, KwaThema and Tsakane, is at a low point of 35% instead of the required 60% – 70%. The low levels of the reservoirs affected water supply to most high-lying areas in the area,” the department said.
During a meeting with the councillors of Etwatwa Township in Ekurhuleni, Tshabalala also reiterated the problem of high percentages of water loss and sewer spillages in the municipality.
She urged the councillors to prioritise issues of water and sanitation, warning that “when neglected, they amount to a violation of human rights to the community members of Ekurhuleni.”
Rand Water and the Municipalities acquire committed to work on an immediate water management location, including implementing water-shifting, as an interim measure to stabilise the scheme of the storage reservoirs that are currently low. – SAnews.gov.za
red woman
A British man on safari walks into a bar far out in the reaches of a game reserve in Southern Africa, he stays at the bar for a while shooting the shit with the bartender and drinking like a fish, he offer to buy the barkeep a round and since no one else is within 2km of their small oasis of liquor the barkeep obliges. The englishman goes off to the bathroom to have a good old go at the porcelain, he\’s back and ready for a few more whiskeys. He\’s just sat down when suddenly in the distance he hears a scream. He looks over his shoulder and dismisses it as nothing, he turns to the barkeep and orders a drink, takes a sip and hears the scream again. He looks at the barkeep who just shrugs it off. A minute or two later he and the barman hear it again and go outside to take a look. They see a lone figure running towards them screaming, he spots them and lets out a cry, RUN!!!!! HE\”S COMING!!!!!
The barkeep and the Englishman both look at the terrified bedraggled sight before them, and try to calm him down, but he\’s completely inconsolable. They give him water and finally manage to get a word out of him but he struggles free from their grasp and run away screaming.
A few minutes later the same thing happens with a whole group of men running in and screaming, he\’s coming, he\’s coming the barkeep grabs hold of one of the men as he tries to sprint past the bar and tries to get information out of him, again no response other than terrified gibberish.
The barkeep and his customer are starting to get worried, they start to pack up before another group of horrified natives run up to the bar most of them flee but one tries to hide behind the bar, the barkeep pulls out a shotgun and points it at the terrified man\’s face, finally managing to coax some words out of him. \”He\’s coming for us, Vernon Koekemoer is coming for us, we have to hide!!! We have to get out of here.\” He gets up and tries to run but the barkeep grabs him, feeling trapped in a panic he grabs the barkeeps shotgun and blows his own head off. The Englishman and the barkeep look at each other starting to really panic now.
They look out of the window and off in the distance they see a tornado coming towards the bar, at the bottom of the tornado they see the hugest beast of a man they have ever seen, as he gets closer they spot that he is riding a rhinocerous and using a crocodile as a riding whip, with each smack of the crocodile across the back of the rhino the louder is screams and the faster it runs, the tornado following it getting ever larger.
The 2 look at each other and start to fortify their position, they\’ve got a gun and they\’re waaay to drunk to run, so they start piling bar stool and tables and anything they can get their hands on to make sure they\’ll be safe when he arrives. They\’re not gonna make it, they can see the man slowing down his rhino, by now the crocodile is nothing but reptile paste on the bruised rump of the half dead rhino, the rhino drops down dead from exhaustion and crashes to the ground right outside the bar the tornado loses it\’s last breath in a cloud of dust as the huge man crashes his way through the make shift barricade and charges up towards the bar where the 2 men have taken shelter, he grabs a bottle of the hardest liquor on the shelf and down the entire litre in 1 gulp, he peers over the bar sobbing and sees the 2 defenders cowering down behind the crates of beer, they look up at the mans\’ face and he stares at them with a look of complete and utter hopelessness, he stares at them for a half second and half screams, half sobs, \”Oh my god what are you still doing here!!! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!!! Vernon Koekemoer is coming!!!!\”
Gas Man
The quickest means of communication is to trust a girl with a rumor and then produce her vow not to tell