Joburg Water says it is installing generators at its water pumping stations to avoid water disruptions when transformers are not working.
This comes after the City of Joburg together with other municipalities experienced water problems over the weekend.
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Rand Water transformers lost power causing water outages in several areas of the Gauteng province.
Some health facilities, including the Helen Joseph Hospital, were also affected.
Joburg Water CEO, Ntshavheni Mukwevho, says it takes a week to fully restore water when the main water pumping station has experienced power outages like Eikenhoff pumping stations, south of Johannesburg.
“On our side especially we looking at the currently from Hursthill, Brixton and Crosby. That system also its reliant on pumping. We have two pumping stations within that area and we have in fact appointed a service provider to install generators in those pump stations and which are i expect should be installed within a week and a half,” explains Mukwevho.
Ongoing water disruptions affect healthcare facilities:
Mukwevho says R2 billion is needed annually to renew the aged water infrastructure in the city. It says currently there is no enough budget to start refurbishing the city’s assets to ensure consistent service delivery, such as water.
Mukwevho they currently have only over R600 million to upgrade the water infrastructure.
“We need not to sit back and say we currently have R600 million to invest and we need to leave it at that. Our responsibility is to go out there and look for various way how can we be able to raise additional resources. How can we be able to find partners and if there are areas we believe that we can be able to partners either with private sector and help us do certain things. There are various models we are looking at,” he adds.
