• The City of Ekurhuleni says that parts of Benoni, Airfield, Farraremere, Farraremere Gardens, and Lakefield will be without water on Tuesday.
• The seven-hour shutdown is to conduct replacements of faulty valves at local infrastructure.
• Water should return to residents by the evening, but they will join other areas in Gauteng in dealing with water scarcity.

Amid reports that Johannesburg’s water reservoirs are only at 30 percent capacity and an ongoing water crisis being faced by the most populous city in the country, the City of Ekurhuleni in Gauteng is preparing to cut water to taps for seven hours on Tuesday for maintenance.

According to the Ekurhuleni municipality, the water shutdown will affect residents in parts of Benoni, Airfield, Farraremere, Farraremere Gardens and Lakefield. It will be implemented from 09:00 on Tuesday until 16:00. Maintenance will be conducted for the replacement of faulty valves.

“To mitigate the effect of the supply interruption, water tankers will supply water to the affected areas. Updates on any development will be communicated through the city’s digital platforms,” the city said in a statement shared with SA News.

The shutdown mirrors another shutdown that Johannesburg residents endured in July 2023 to repair several key infrastructure facilities in the city. That shutdown would last for more than 58 hours with the water taking even longer to fill pipes again.

Residents should take note that the Ekurhuleni shutdown could last longer than seven hours, and that the water may take a while to fill the pipes again.

Despite the city facing a larger problem with steadily degrading public infrastructure, including hundreds of burst pipes a day and rampant vandalism of electrical infrastructure like street lights, the mayor of Johannesburg Kabelo Gwamanda told residents that if they just keep paying their fees and levies to the municipality, services will be delivered.

He blamed “unfavourable economic conditions, escalating costs, job losses, and loadshedding affecting revenue generation” for the degrading quality of services in city.

This year, the province of Gauteng has a budget of R165.8 billion, of which R37.2 billion is expected to go towards maintaining provincial public infrastructure. Last Friday the City of Tshwane successfully installed a new pump and motor at the Bronkhorstspruit Water Treatment Plant following weeks worth of an outage.

“Full supply has been restored in Ekangala and Rethabiseng, except in Rethabiseng Extension 4, due to the infrastructure network connection. The section will start receiving water once there is enough water pressure in the whole area,” the Tshwana municipality said on Tuesday.

“The high lying area are also receiving water. There are indications that water is gradually trickling in at Ekandustria since this morning. The city apologises profusely to the residents for the inconvenience caused.”

[Image – Photo by Jos Speetjens on Unsplash]