Gauteng Water Crisis: DA to march to Minister’s office

Tomorrow, 15 November 2023, the DA will march to the office of Water Minister and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu, where we will hand over a memorandum of demand.

Over the past months, the DA’s petition calling on the CEO of Rand Water to be fired has gathered thousands of signatures. The people of Gauteng have had enough.

The march will be led by the DA Gauteng Premier candidate, Solly Msimanga MPL, and Member of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Water and Sanitation, Stephen Moore MP.

The constant absence of water that the residents of Gauteng have been experiencing these past months, inflicts profound hardship, compromising the livelihoods and overall well-being of communities. It is time for the Minister to act decisively.

Members of the media are hereby invited to attend the event as per the details below:
Date: 15 November 2023
Time: 9:30 for 10:00
Venue: Starting point – Princes Park located here: https://goo.gl/maps/XzKPVUCPHcK7h7iV6
End Point – Ndinaye House, 178 Francis Baard St, Pretoria Central, Pretoria, 0001 located here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/4Si2CWR8VgiHBtkMA

RSVP: Franco van der Berg, Provincial Communications Manager at 076 882 4413

Gauteng Water Crisis: DA to march to Minister’s office

On Wednesday, 15 November 2023, the DA will march to the office of Water Minister and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu, where we will hand over a memorandum of demand.

Over the past months, the DA’s petition calling on the CEO of Rand Water to be fired has gathered thousands of signatures. The people of Gauteng have had enough.

The march will be led by the DA Gauteng Premier candidate, Solly Msimanga MPL, and Member of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Water and Sanitation, Stephen Moore MP.

The constant absence of water that the residents of Gauteng have been experiencing these past months, inflicts profound hardship, compromising the livelihoods and overall well-being of communities. It is time for the Minister to act decisively.

Members of the media are hereby invited to attend the event as per the details below:

Date:    15 November 2023

Time:    9:30 for 10:00

Venue: Starting point – Princes Park located here: https://goo.gl/maps/XzKPVUCPHcK7h7iV6

              End Point –         Ndinaye House, 178 Francis Baard St, Pretoria Central, Pretoria, 0001 located here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/4Si2CWR8VgiHBtkMA

 

RSVP: Franco van der Berg, Provincial Communications Manager at 076 882 4413

DA to lodge a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission over water crisis in Gauteng

Tomorrow, Monday, 31 October 2022, the Official Leader of the Opposition in Gauteng, Solly Msimanga MPL, and the DA Gauteng Spokesperson for Infrastructure Development, Nico De Jager MPL, will be laying a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in Braamfontein regarding the current water crisis in the province.

For many weeks our residents have been left with limited access to water and electricity. Rand Water has been calling on our residents to use water sparingly, yet during our recent oversight inspection of the pumping station and water reservoir in Eikenhof, we discovered that there is a water leak right outside their premises.

This is concerning as our residents are forced to collect water from water tankers which has already resulted in a 13-year-old boy being admitted to the hospital in critical condition after he was knocked over by a car while collecting water in Coronationville.

Access to water is a basic human right and this right is currently being infringed on by Rand Water which is throttling supply to various reservoirs and pumping stations in the province. This right should not become dangerous, and our residents pay for a service that they expect to be delivered without interruption.

The media is invited and there will be an opportunity for interviews and photographs

Details of the event are as follows:

Date: 31 October 2022

Time: 11:00

Address: 27 Stiemens St, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001

#GautengWaterCrisis: Hundreds of angry Gauteng residents sign DA’s petition demanding an uninterrupted supply of water

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng has received hundreds of signatures from angry residents in the province who have been negatively impacted by the abrupt water cuts in the various parts of the province.

Residents have experienced interruptions in their supply of water when Rand Water embarks on maintenance of their bulk infrastructure.

The municipalities are unable to plan properly when the maintenance does occur because they do not receive timeous communications from Rand Water.

Residents then take their frustrations out on their ward councillors and the municipality as they expect to receive a continuous supply of water from the municipality.

Furthermore, municipalities do not have sufficient water tankers and budget to provide water tankers to the areas affected by Rand Water’s infrastructure maintenance.

Proper communication from Rand Water’s maintenance plans, ideally before the start of the new financial year, will ensure that all municipalities in the province are able to properly plan and budget for extra water tankers to be procured when the need arises.

The DA will continue with its efforts to engage with the National Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu, Premier David Makhura and Rand Water on this matter. So far, our letters requesting a meeting and intervention from Provincial Government have been met with silence. This shows that they clearly have little regard for our basic human rights as enshrined in the Constitution.

We urge all our residents affected by Rand Water’s incompetence to sign our petition here to ensure that there is an uninterrupted supply of water in the province.

#GautengWaterCrisis: DA is not looking for votes Minister Mchunu, we want to ensure that the basic right of access to water is not compromised by incompetency

The incompetent and inefficient Rand Water has on several occasions failed to communicate timeously to the residents of Gauteng through their municipalities about the planned water outages due to the maintenance of water infrastructure.

Based on two previous occasions where our residents were abrupt left without water earlier this year, it raised concern for the DA. This is because the situation was not effectively communicated by Rand Water and therefore, we had no choice but to put pressure on the government to ensure that such instances were not repeated.

The Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu is now trying to deflect the seriousness of the situation by saying that the DA has caused panic among Gauteng residents. However, the fact that they have delayed the planned scheduled maintenance from 1-3 April 2022 shows that there was no effective communication with the municipalities that were going to be affected.

Rand Water states that they are not responsible for providing water tankers to the affected municipalities during water outages yet, they are the ones who cause water supply interruptions due to their maintenance operations.

While we agree that there is a need to maintain water infrastructure, this however cannot be done by inconveniencing our residents. Rand Water must also be held financially accountable for the financial burden that is now placed on municipalities in terms of sourcing out water tankers.

Municipalities do not have sufficient water tankers to provide water to the affected residents during water outages caused by Rand Water. There should be a shared responsibility between the Rand Water and municipalities to ensure that areas affected by water outages are provided with water during that period. This will leave thousands of Gauteng residents without water and will then blame the municipalities for failing to provide water tankers.

The DA is not desperate for votes and will never politicise such a human crisis. We will continue to put pressure on both provincial and national governments as well as Rand Water to ensure an uninterrupted water supply for all Gauteng residents.

The DA is petitioning the Premier and COGTA MEC to lobby their national counterparts to engage with the South African National Defence Force to assist with water tankers during the water outages. We also demand a proper audit of all our water infrastructure in Gauteng.

We will be engaging with the Department of Water and Sanitation concerning its refusal to grant a license to Rand Water to increase its water capacity supply. We will also be engaging with Rand Water in terms of their water infrastructure maintenance plans and their ineffective communication to the municipalities.