Pretoria - The Gauteng Provincial Government has welcomed the news that there will be no water supply interruption after labour action at Rand Water was averted.
The utility was facing immense strike action that might have affected the water supply to municipalities.
However, an agreement has been reached between the workers and the employer. This has been communicated to the municipalities.
“The people of Gauteng can rest assured that it is business as usual and there will be no interruption to water supply,” said Gauteng Cooperative Governance, Traditional Affairs and Human Settlements MEC Jacob Mamabolo.
MEC Mamabolo was speaking at the Gauteng City Region Water and Sanitation Forum in Parktown.
The forum was officially launched in February by Premier David Makhura to address water supply challenges that hit Gauteng late last year.
It is comprised of the Department of Water and Sanitation, Provincial Government, Municipalities and other relevant stakeholders such as Rand Water and Eskom.
The forum is also responsible for proactively tackling water and sanitation challenges in the province and implementing strategies tabled by all relevant stakeholders.
“We saw it fit as a forum to convene this meeting now – we did not want to wait for a crisis to happen first. It helps to be proactive than reactive,” MEC Mamabolo said.
Rand Water used the forum to update the status of water in municipalities, including the challenges of water supply in Merafong Local Municipality.
This, according to the report, is due to sinkholes that affected their reservoirs. However, there is a plan in place to address the challenge.
The Rand Water report also stated the non-payment of some municipalities as one of their challenges. The entity requested intervention of MEC Mamabolo and his department to deal with the issue.
MEC Mamabolo said there was a need to continue a war on challenges of water and sanitation in the province.
“We need to ensure we intervene and encourage residents to pay for their services so that municipalities can raise revenue to pay for water supply from Rand Water. We cannot allow the tradition of no-payment as this will lead to no services and that will affect the communities,” the MEC said. – SAnews.gov.za
