#GautengWaterCrisis: Minister Mchunu, Premier Makhura and Rand Water snub their noses at DA’s request for meetings and discussions on the Gauteng water crisis
11 April 2022
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng has received no response from the Office of the Premier, Rand Water and the Minister of Water and Sanitation regarding our letters in which we requested that they urgently share their plans regarding the current water crisis in the province.
In our letter to the CEO of Rand Water, we requested an urgent meeting to discuss the way forward once the entity embarks on its planned maintenance of our water infrastructure. This request has been met with silence.
We also wrote to Premier David Makhura, regarding the fact that our municipalities do not have sufficient water tankers to ensure that all residents affected by the water outages during maintenance are supplied with water. On two previous occasions when Rand Water embarked on maintenance, the municipalities like Tshwane were not given sufficient notice so that they could procure additional water tankers. In this letter, we asked the Premier to liaise with the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to provide municipalities with water tankers. Again, this letter was met with silence.
In addition, we also wrote a letter to the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu regarding the refusal by his department to issue Rand Water with an additional licence to increase the water capacity in the province. Again, no response was received.
This is very worrying as the provision of water is a basic human right enshrined in our Constitution. As the DA, we have a responsibility to ensure that all our residents are given access to basic services and that their basic human rights are not infringed upon. In all our communication with the various stakeholders, we have offered solutions that would help to mitigate the problems that may arise from prolonged water outages due to the maintenance of our bulk water infrastructure.
In the next few days, we will be meeting with all our Mayors to discuss the plans that will be put in place to ensure the continuous supply of water to our residents.
Furthermore, the DA has received thousands of signatures on our petition to the Premier and COGTA MEC to lobby their national counterparts to engage with the South African 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 urge all Gauteng residents to sign our petition to help end the water crisis in Gauteng. To sign or access the DA’s Water Crisis Petition, please click this link: https://petitions.da.org.za/p/
Issued by Solly Msimanga, Official Leader of the Opposition-Gauteng, 11 April 2022
