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There’s no immediate prospect of water being restored to high- lying Johannesburg’s suburbs unless government takes extraordinary steps. Given our full dams, Rand Water  must pump enough water into Johannesburg’s water system to allow the filling of all water reservoirs. 

Like running a tap into an unplugged bath, too much is flowing out of the system through leaks and broken infrastructure for the system to fill up. Until all reservoirs are full, high lying suburbs like Brixton, Melville, Coronationville and Emmarentia will  have intermittent water. Under current circumstances this will not happen for several weeks.

The only way to change this is for the Department of Water and Sanitation to enable Rand Water to increase its pumping from the Vaal Dam. The DA has suggested this happen immediately but there’s been no response from the Minister of Water and Sanitation or from her department. Taking this step will not affect water security while the Vaal Dam is more than 100% full.

Last week’s promises to fix the water system have not been met. The ANC owes it to the residents of Johannesburg to cut through its inertia and follow the DA’s suggestion to restore the system.

Issued by Democratic Alliance Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille