Residents across a wide swath of Johannesburg are being urged to prepare for water outages this weekend, as the bulk water supplier, Rand Water, begins a large-scale, scheduled maintenance operation on its key systems.
The maintenance is scheduled to commence on the morning of Friday, 13th December, and will continue for 48 hours, concluding on Sunday, 15th December. The work will impact three of Rand Water’s major distribution systems, affecting suburbs from the deep south to the inner city.
According to a Rand Water spokesperson, the first and most significantly affected system will be the Palmiet system. This system supplies areas including South Hills, Alexander Park, the greater Sandton/Alex region, and the greater Midrand region. These areas will experience a full 48-hour disruption.
The second system scheduled for work is the Swartkop system. This will impact water supply to parts of southern Johannesburg, including Glen Vista, Kenilworth Park, Crown Gardens, and surrounding areas. The Swartkop system also supplies the inner city and areas from Yeoville to Parktown, all of which will be without water for the 48-hour period.
The final system undergoing maintenance is the Zuikerbosch system, which supplies Johannesburg’s deep south region. Affected areas will include greater Orange Farm, Ennerdale, and Lawley. However, the spokesperson indicated that the impact on this system is expected to be “far less” than on the other two, with work likely to be concluded and supply restored by the end of Saturday.
” The expectation is that it is going really to be only tomorrow during the day… the work will be concluded in terms of restoring water from that system,” the spokesperson said regarding the Zuikerbosch maintenance.
The scheduled maintenance is part of Rand Water’s essential infrastructure upkeep program. Residents in the affected areas are strongly advised to store adequate water in advance for drinking, cooking, and personal use during the outage period.