Water and Sanitation Deputy Minister David Mahlobo said Rand Water and Umngeni-Uthukela Water Boards have been deployed to tackle water woes in the struggling municipalities that cannot constantly provide water to communities in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).
This is as Gauteng residents are still without water in some areas and residents in Durban have also been facing serious water outages for weeks.
In Joburg, residents have experienced water outages for two weeks.
"Those of us deployed in government, our ministry, has decided that because these metros are struggling to perform this function, we have agreed to deploy our water boards and very capable water boards which is Rand Water for all municipalities in Gauteng.
"We have deployed the Umngeni-Uthukela Water board in eThekwini to support them," he said.
He said the City of Johannesburg metro will be excluded from the plan, stating that their entity, Johannesburg Water will ensure that the supply is done.
Mahlobo briefed the media on Monday at Luthuli House on Priority 4 of the ANC’s election manifesto.
The manifesto outlines how the ANC aims to invest in people by meeting basic needs for all, investing in education, improving health outcomes, improving service delivery, and expanding the use of science and technology.
During the briefing, Mahlobo pleaded with residents to hang in there while they were still fixing the crisis.
"We understand the anger and agitation by many communities that are denied their basic right to have access to water," he said.
However, Mahlobo stressed that the reason for dry taps in Gauteng was that the system of providing water was unstable because of an inclement weather condition that happened where lightning struck Eikenhof, one of the biggest pump stations in the province.
He said it took more than three days to fix the damage in terms of electricity, and in that period, the reservoir levels went down. Subsequently, a power feed was also down which took about two days to fix.
He said technical teams in the two provinces were meeting twice daily in an attempt to curb the issue of water shortages and also monitor the vulnerability of the system.
Furthermore, on Friday, the City of Johannesburg Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda updated that the water system was in a "better condition” than it was last week and that the water supply was steadily recovering.
kamogelo.moichela@iol.co.za
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