Residents in the City of Johannesburg will experience overnight water restrictions from Thursday. This was announced by the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Pemmy Majodina, at a joint media briefing with the Gauteng Premier, Panyaza Lesufi, Joburg Water and Rand Water today. The water throttling will take place between 9pm to 4am daily to enable reservoir levels to recover overnight.

DEMAND TOO HIGH

Majodina said that the main cause of water supply disruptions in Johannesburg is that the peak demand for water is close to and occasionally exceeds the available supply from Rand Water. She also said that Gauteng is consuming way more water per day than required by international standards. She said the province uses 278 per capita per day rather than the required 173, which has led to the province being placed under level one water restriction. This, according to the Minister, is also caused by electro-mechanical breakdowns or spikes in demand caused by heatwaves. "The demand-supply relationship for treated water in Johannesburg is tight and the system remains vulnerable. The demand for water in Johannesburg has grown and continues to grow as a result of economic growth and population growth. DWS anticipated this growth in demand and put in place plans to address it as far back as the 1980s, through the Lesotho Highlands Water Project," she said.

OTHER MEASURES TO DEAL WITH WATER SHORTAGE 

Majodina said Johannesburg Water also came up with measures to implement to avoid day zero, where taps in the metro could run dry. Among other measures, Joburg Water will procure a panel of contractors for emergency repairs of large-diameter pipe water leaks as well as increasing the number of teams on standby during the week to attend to leaks and burst pipes. They will also increase the number of repair and maintenance teams on duty during the weekend to improve leak repair response times from 48 hours to 24 hours, increasing the number of trucks available to its leak repair and maintenance teams and implementing cut-offs of illegal connections in key informal settlements."The political leadership in the three spheres of government is confident that these measures will be implemented with the necessary urgency. It was agreed that similar meetings will be held every Sunday to monitor progress," she added.