Residents across multiple City of Tshwane areas were on Thursday left stranded as they woke up to dry taps due to a power trip at Rand Water’s Palmiet Pump Station on Wednesday.
Those who bore the brunt of major water outages were from Olievenhoutbosch, Lotus Gardens, Thatchfield, parts of Soshanguve, Atteridgeville, Laudium and parts of Mabopane.
Many took to social media to vent their anger and frustration, claiming that water outages have become a regular occurrence.
Others pointed out that their areas were experiencing concurrent electricity outages.
Some residents claimed on social media that water outages were allowed to happen to allow the politically-connected individuals to benefit from contracts of distributing water through water tankers.
One resident said the areas hard hit by water shortages were the same ones where the municipality recently threatened to impose water restrictions due to high levels of water consumption.
“Is this due to Rand Water's supply issues, or are these restrictions coming from your side?”the resident asked.
Municipal spokesperson Selby Bokaba apologised to the affected residents on behalf of the City for the inconvenience caused by this unplanned water supply interruption.
“Tshwane has been notified by Rand Water that its Palmiet Booster Pump Station is now pumping at full capacity following yesterday’s power trip that affected operations at the pump station,” he said.
He said the trip resulted in the depletion of the water utility’s Klipriviersberg, Klipfontein, Brakfontein and Hartebeesthoek reservoirs that supply some of Tshwane reservoirs.
Bokaba said: “According to Rand Water, the affected reservoirs’ levels have shown positive signs of improvement since pumping was optimised. This means that the city’s reservoirs will gradually recover.”
He said some of Tshwane’s reservoirs supplied by the water utility’s reservoirs were sitting at extremely low levels or with no water at all.
He urged customers to exercise patience during the pumping period as the network takes time to fully recover.
“Residents will be kept updated as and when there are new developments. The city is pleading once more with residents in the low-lying areas to use water sparingly when the supply is restored, to allow the system to reach a level at which high lying areas can be able to get supply,” he said.
Pretoria News