HEAD OFFICE

522 Impala Road Glenvista 2058

P O Box 1127 Johannesburg 2000 30 August 2021

MEDIA STATEMENT

MISINFORMATION ON WATER CURTAILMENTS IN

Rand Water has noted with concern the misleading statements that have been issued in the media, as well as comments published on social media platforms on the matter related to the water outages experienced by consumers in Laudium.

As part of agreed upon operations philosophy, Rand Water engaged its customers (municipalities) and outlined the need to keep reservoir levels between 60 and 80% at all times. This philosophy was agreed by all customers and remains our operations philosophy to this day. It is against this background that Rand Water has implemented water supply curtailments in order to recover the reservoir levels that have critically dropped below 60% as a result demand that has outstripped the supply. The procedure of implementing the curtailments is well documented and outlines the stages of curtailments.

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It is in the interest of transparency, that the below chronology of events be made public in order to clear any misinformation;

1. On 24 August 2021, Rand Water communicated electronically to its three metropolitan municipal customers i.e. City of Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg Water and the City of Tshwane of its intention to implement its emergency protocol by curtailing municipal meters by 20%. This curtailment was necessitated by the critically low reservoir levels within Rand Water’s Eikenhof, Palmiet and Mapleton systems. On Thursday, 26 August 2021, a formal letter

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was sent to the operations officials within the three municipalities to confirm the implementation of the curtailments.

2. Included as part of the curtailments were the Laudium, Kosmosdal and meters, within the City of Tshwane. These were some of the restricted meters by Rand Water on 26 August 2021.

3. On Friday, 27 August 2021, the City of Tshwane sent an email to Rand Water indicating that the Laudium reservoir was dropping at an alarming rate and requested assistance from Rand Water. The City requested that the curtailments be lifted from the Laudium – , Lotus, and Kosmosdal meters. The City then provided Rand Water with a new list of meters to be restricted; these included the Garankuwa, , and Clifton meters. Rand Water immediately acted on the request and by 18h00 on Friday, 27 August 2021, the curtailments on the Laudium – Atteridgeville, Lotus, Mamelodi and Kosmosdal meters were lifted.

4. On Saturday 28 August 2021, the City of Tshwane informed Rand Water that the Laudium reservoir continued to drop and that the inflow into their reservoir had reduced considerably. Rand Water dispatched its operations team to investigate on our network and found that the pressure at the Rand Water supply point was at 10 bar, which is the normal operating pressure for the system. The City also indicated that the pressure at their Kosmosdal meter had also dropped drastically and requested Rand Water to also investigate that supply point.

5. On the same Saturday, it was agreed that both teams from the City and Rand Water meet on site, to jointly investigate the Laudium supply and thereafter the Kosmosdal supply.

6. During the investigation, the Rand Water team found that the City of Tshwane meter at the Laudium reservoir was not operating. This meter has two valves, before and after the meter. These valves had been closed. The valves were then opened and immediately thereafter, the meter was operational and water flowing into the Laudium reservoir.

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7. It was also discovered that the inlet valve at the reservoir was not fully open and upon opening the valve, the flow into the reservoir increased.

8. This exercise concluded and resolved the water supply challenge at the Laudium reservoir and supply was fully restored. To this end, and from our perspective, this matter was resolved on Saturday, 28 August 2021 and there were no further service interruptions reported to us by the City of Tshwane.

9. The media releases accusing Rand Water of not communicating the curtailments is unfortunate given the above.

10. Rand Water will continue to assist Tshwane in resolving the water supply issue in Laudium.

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For media queries, please contact Justice Mohale on 083 417 6999 or email [email protected]

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