Joburg Water urged to balance spend on new structures with fixing the old

Joburg Water's projected spend of R771m on expanding and upgrading its vast water system vs the estimated R206m it intends to spend on water conservation and demand management have raised calls for the need to balance the building of new capacity with repairing existing infrastructure.

The entity on Tuesday provided an update to its reservoir construction and upgrade programme that will see the construction of several reservoirs and towers in the next two years, largely in the north of the city. These will help address the need for more water storage capacity.

The new builds are:

• Erand Tower in Midrand, which will have a 2ML capacity and is now in construction phase.
• Robertsville Tower, which will have 2.25ML capacity and is in procurement phase
• Woodmead reservoir, which will have 22ML capacity and is being constructed.
• Halfway house reservoir, which will have 20ML capacity and is in procurement phase.
• Blue Hills Tower, which will have 1.8ML capacity and is in design phase.
• Carlswald reservoir, which will have 20ML capacity and is in procurement phase.
• Linbro towers, which will have 3ML capacity and is in design phase and;
• Brixton Reservoir and tower, which will have 26ML and 2ML capacity and is in construction phase.

All of these systems are expected to be completed between April 2024 and July 2025 at an estimated total cost of R771m.

The entity is also planning “strategic interventions” as part of its water consumption and water demand management and this will include: repairs to leaking reservoirs and tower infrastructure, repair and replacement of zonal bulk water meters, active and passive leak detection, retrofitting and removal of wasteful devices (infrastructure upgrade and renewal) and water pipe replacement, among others.

The entire cost is estimated at R206,330m. Joburg Water's physical losses (water wastage) is 24.1% and the overall non-revenue water, which is the water the entity is not generating revenue from, is 46.1%.

Executive manager of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse's (Outa's) WaterCAN initiative, Dr Ferrial Adam, weighed in on these two revelations, questioning if the city was maintaining a balance between the need to increase capacity against the necessary maintenance of broken infrastructure.

“That is something that we've been asking, because we know that some of the reservoirs that are feeding into key areas, like the Hursthill 2 reservoir, there's a crack of 1.2m and that's why they can't fill it.

“Often, we look at building new things when we don't even fix what exists. So understanding how they spend the budget is important. Of the budget they are spending on reservoirs, how much is going to new reservoirs and how much is going to upkeep and maintenance — and then of course, fixing the leaks. Because you can build 10 more reservoirs but if you've got a leaking system then you're going to keep building reservoirs and not fixing the leaks,” she said.

Adams said the physical losses remain high and the priority should be on fixing this.

She said WaterCAN had written to both Joburg Water and Rand Water to request site visits and “an understanding of the maintenance” of leaking reservoirs.

“My view is that the municipality has to spend at least 5%-6% of the costs of the asset. For example, if a reservoir costs R100m, you need to spend at least 5% a year on maintenance. Have they done that?

“Civil society, residents, communities are angry. Speak to us in a language that we can understand. We are not idiots, inform us and give us the knowledge that we need to be able to understand what's going on, both with Joburg Water and Rand Water. Meet us, we are on the ground and can tell you when things are wrong.”

The national co-ordinator of the South African Water Caucus, Sandile Nombeni, for his part, also questioned the focus on building new capacity instead of prioritising maintenance.

“I think the major concern about these water projects is you'd ask yourself why haven't they [entities] been taking care of the current water infrastructure,” he said.

He raised the issue of community involvement and participation in the projects, saying that involving those directly affected often reduces the chances of corruption taking place.