Pretoria - Soshanguve residents complained loudly over the weekend as they queued in long lines for water.
They said a week without water was too much to endure.
The residents of Block L in the township north of Pretoria said it was unacceptable to be without such an important resource for so long, and then to be made to wait in long queues as if they had nothing better to do.
The City of Tshwane said its water team had discovered its reservoir was empty and so areas would be affected for a few hours while the teams rectified the problem.
It said the issue affected Block H, L, M, Y, K, F, G, CC, UU, WW, TT, VV, Extension 1. The City said its bulk team was investigating the cause of the reservoir running dry.
Resident, Kelebogile Masemola, said while standing in the heat on Saturday that it was frustrating as they had not been notified about a water outage.
“We are paying residents, yet we were not notified. This leaves us to question if the municipality really does care about us.
“I do not think they take us seriously. We pay for these services, yet we have to queue here for water. It is extremely stressful. We cannot drink as and when we are thirsty, have to think about doing chores, and cannot even flush the toilet … the house is now stinky because we cannot clean or flush.”
Another resident said:“If it is not load shedding, it is water. It might happen that I leave here for my house and when I get there, there’s no electricity. It is not working out for us, queuing and having to worry about load shedding too. I have kids. I must bathe them, I need to cook and do laundry for them. On top of that, I need to clean the house.”
A woman said they had been waiting in the queue from sunrise for almost five hours, and even though the water truck had arrived, it had run out of water.
The City said it was aware that the Soshanguve Block L Reservoir’s water was empty, and additional reports indicated that other reservoirs on the same supply line, such as the Ga-Rankuwa Industrial, Mabopane Mega 55, and the Winterveldt Reservoirs were also affected.
“The City of Tshwane and Rand Water technicians have been dispatched to investigate the cause of this unforeseen interruption.
“Preliminary investigations revealed that there was no inflow supply to the reservoir, which was confirmed by the inlet pressure registering 0 bar. With the view of establishing the cause of the drop in the pressure, the reservoir inlet chamber was stripped and no possible restricting materials were located,” it said.
The City said the investigations were continuing, and that roaming water tankers had been dispatched to supply residents with water.
“The City apologises profusely for the inconvenience caused during this period,” it said.
Pretoria News