Note to Editors: Please find an English soundbite by Cllr Tyrell Meyers here
Hundreds of thousands of Johannesburg residents woke up this morning to dry taps –again. This is fast becoming the norm, as countless residents were subjected to days and weeks without water last year.
Johannesburg Water’s board must go, and today, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Johannesburg renews its call for just that.
Our experience last year was that the Executive Mayor, Councillor Dada Morero together with his Executive Mayoral Committee Member responsible for Infrastructure, Councillor Jack Sekwaila were missing in action.
The current outage is as a result of the purification plant in Vereeniging experiencing a power outage on the evening of 11 February, leading to the disruption of fresh water supply to Joburg Water and its customers. As a result, most reservoirs that were critically empty to begin with, are now bone dry.
Prevention is always better than cure, and Johannesburg Water’s inability to keep water in its reservoirs has once again come back to keep people’s taps dry.
Our call for the dissolution of Johannesburg Water’s board, if complied with, would mean that members of the board can be replaced with qualified, merit-based individuals who understand water engineering and reticulation.
Most of Johannesburg Water’s infrastructure has passed its life cycle, and the entity requires funding to replace it, urgently too. It does become difficult to justify that when capital expenditure has increased from R770 million to R860 million, while salaries have increased from R840 million to R1.5 billion.
Johannesburg Water’s board is steering the entity into the abyss. It must be dissolved, and competent people must be brought in as a matter of urgency.