If you live in the Melville area of Johannesburg, you might have been experiencing water cut-offs over the weekend. The fault, this time, turns out not be to Johannesburg Water, but contractors laying down fibre connections.
@jhbwater @CityofJoburgZA this time thanks to @vumatel contractors! :-( street address on board. pic.twitter.com/yjW0TzQaJd
— Nishal Goburdhan (@ngoburdhan) March 4, 2016
In a tweet, Johannesburg Water has confirmed that water pipes and infrastructure have been damaged by contractors who are laying down fibre internet connections in the area.
We have contractors damaging our infrastructures while laying fibres,Our infrastructures are of old but running well https://t.co/GOB3NOAI4K
— Johannesburg Water (@jhbwater) March 7, 2016
Fibre supplier Vumatel has also acknowledged on Friday that the water supply in the Melville area was being affected by fibre connection construction.
7th Avenue, Melville. @jhbwater on site fixing the issue. pic.twitter.com/XerlqQTcqb
— Vumatel Melville (@Vuma_Melville) March 4, 2016
Dark Fibre Africa chief strategy officer Rashaad Sha told Moneyweb that with these kinds of things, disruptions are bound to happen.
“Sometimes they may be able to identify the location of their infrastructure but they have no idea what the depth is. Or perhaps because the contractors that built that infrastructure did not follow those specifications. The specs may have said to lay the water pipe one meter down, for example, but there’s no way of knowing how far down the water pipe was actually laid,” he said.
[Image – CC by 2.0/Luke Roberts]
