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The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls for Rand Water to immediately replan its ridiculous mid-December water shut-off for large parts of the City of Johannesburg, which will effectively steal Christmas from millions of Johannesburg residents.

Rand Water’s announcement of their December maintenance schedule in Johannesburg is an indication of poor planning and utter mismanagement.

This maintenance is slated to take place over 86 hours, from 13 December to 16 December – but experience shows that scheduled maintenance never sticks to schedule and restarting the water supply takes days. The December maintenance of both the Eikenhof and Zwartkopjes pump stations, will shut-off hundreds of thousands of homes’ water supply.

This very same system has in the past, with additional water being supplied by Rand Water to stabilise it, taken up to two weeks to recover after maintenance.

Two weeks to recover, in the warmest month of the year, whilst most people attempt to spend quality time with their loved ones, is unacceptable—especially when taps run dry.

The DA calls on Rand Water to reconsider this disastrous route - failure to properly maintain pump stations during the year should not steal Christmas from Joburg residents.

This sounds and looks like an “emergency repair” rather than one that has been well-managed. And if it is an “emergency” Rand Water is to be condemned in the harshest terms.

We will be writing to Rand Water, and Johannesburg Water to demand the rescheduling of this process, to avoid Rand Water stealing Christmas, like the failing Grinch that it is.

Issued by Nicole van Dyk - DA Johannesburg Shadow MMC for Infrastructure