{"id":701761,"date":"2023-07-06T12:23:20","date_gmt":"2023-07-06T10:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=701761"},"modified":"2023-07-06T12:23:20","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T10:23:20","slug":"the-real-cause-of-south-africas-water-crisis-according-to-rand-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/701761\/the-real-cause-of-south-africas-water-crisis-according-to-rand-water\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘real’ cause of South Africa’s water crisis – according to Rand Water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In addressing the ongoing challenges in resolving water shortages across South Africa and Gauteng, Rand Water CEO Sipho Mosai pointed to municipal mismanagement<\/strong> and capacity<\/strong> as the root cause of the water shortage crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gauteng\u2019s main metros are currently facing major water supply issues, with households going without water for days and, in some cases, weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a media briefing on Wednesday (5 July 2023), Mosai dispelled that Rand Water has a water supply issue. \u201cRand Water doesn\u2019t have a problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained that Rand Water is a bulk supplier of water. It buys water from the Department of Water and Sanitation from the Vaal Dam integrated system. It then purifies it before pumping it to various water reservoirs across four provinces \u2013 including all the municipalities in Gauteng.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that Rand Water\u2019s customers (the municipalities) are then responsible for distributing the water to homes on the ground. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a disturbing trend that when a water outage occurs, people turn to Rand Water and not the municipality,\u201d said Mosai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that when load shedding is expected to impact bulk supply, Rand Water communicates this to the relevant municipality, and it is then their responsibility to notify residents of the affected areas if reserves are low at a municipal level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mosai also reminded residents that although load shedding has reduced, power trips still occur, and due to the processes needed to pump water across the country, the full recovery of the system may take five days or longer to restore supply fully.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Rand Water CEO, Sipho Mosai.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The main culprits of the water shortages<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pointing to the main factors contributing to the water shortages experienced by parts of South Africa and Gauteng, Mosai noted that residents are affected by power trips at Rand Water because municipalities don\u2019t have enough storage capacity<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost municipalities have been frank about this; they rely on our bulk reservoirs because most of them face challenges with their own reservoirs and their ability to store and boost water supply,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cit takes longer to get water from us and get it all the way to households\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mosai clarified that there is no shortage of water or supply issues on Rand Water\u2019s side<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that Rand Water supplies an average of 4,642 megalitres daily, covering 5,036 megalitres per day at peak demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rand Water estimates that this amount of bulk water supplied to municipalities services close to 18 million residents, \u201cso if you do the maths, we are supplying more than enough water,\u201d said Mosai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is, therefore, simply not right to say that we have a demand and supply problem,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, Mosai said the main issue is the lack of municipal action to address their deteriorating water infrastructure.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that on average – across the 18 municipalities Rand Water supplies – 46% of the water supplied is non-revenue water, meaning 46% is lost due to poor infrastructure, i.e. leaks etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that in some municipalities, this is as much as 60%, while he confirmed that only 4% of the water supplied by Rand Water through its infrastructure is non-revenue water. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe elephant in the room is this non-revenue water that no one seems to be addressing. It has to be attended to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt cannot be that, when there are water issues, Rand Water must just pump more water into the system. It won\u2019t work and is unsustainable; more water will just be lost. Infrastructure maintenance must be addressed,\u201d said Mosai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Read: Water meter headache for South African households<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During a media briefing, Rand Water emphasised the challenging situation regarding water supply to its customers across South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":701829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[14467,853],"class_list":["post-701761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-rand-water","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701761"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":701921,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701761\/revisions\/701921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}