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Rand Water faces the risk of becoming the Christmas Grinch unless water shutoff is delayed.

Johannesburg – The Democratic Alliance (DA) is urging Rand Water to promptly revise its unreasonable mid-December water shutdown, which will effectively rob millions of Johannesburg residents of their Christmas festivities.

Rand Water has declared that it will conduct maintenance at Eikenhof Pump Station from 13 to 16 December, leading to a 86-hour disruption in water services.

In response to this announcement, Nicole van Dyk, the DA Johannesburg Shadow MMC for Infrastructure, stated: “Rand Water will become the Grinch who steals Christmas unless it postpones this ill-conceived water shutdown.”

Van Dyk further remarked: “The timing of Rand Water’s December maintenance schedule in Johannesburg reflects a significant lack of planning and complete mismanagement.

“This maintenance is expected to span 86 hours, from 13 December to 16 December; however, past experiences indicate that maintenance schedules rarely go as planned, and it can take days to resume water supply.”

Van Dyk noted that the upcoming maintenance of both the Eikenhof and Zwartkopjes pump stations will interrupt water supply for hundreds of thousands of homes.

“In previous cases, this same system, even with additional water supplied by Rand Water to stabilize it, has taken up to two weeks to recover post-maintenance,” said Van Dyk.

“Two weeks to recover during the hottest month of the year, while families try to enjoy quality time together, is completely unacceptable – especially with taps running dry.”

“The DA implores Rand Water to rethink this disastrous course of action; negligence in maintaining pump stations throughout the year shouldn’t deprive Joburg residents of their Christmas celebrations.”

“This appears to be more of an ’emergency repair’ than a well-planned maintenance operation. If it is indeed an ’emergency’, Rand Water must be criticized in the strongest terms.”

“We will be reaching out to both Rand Water and Johannesburg Water to request a rescheduling of this process to prevent Rand Water from stealing Christmas, much like the failing Grinch it has become.”

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