Engineers quick to bail out city

LAST weekend, the panic was palpable when the City of Johannesburg warned residents to be aware of a 54-hour shutdown of the water supply as its engineers went about replacing the butterfly valve on a giant 2500mm water distribution pipe.

There’s good reason for the trepidation – our news is filled with municipal dysfunction; this week the Auditor-General reported that 18 out of the country’s 257 municipalities received a clean audit, down from 33 the year before; financial mismanagement at most of them is a nightmare, the Free State is in free fall and, critically, R2.6 billion was lost through poor water management.

Almost 40% of the municipalities disclosed they were losing a third or more of their water. Most of them have no maintenance polices – and that’s before we look at the parlous state of infrastructure maintenance, which has compounded the service delivery crisis in this country.

The omens were ominous, despite Johannesburg’s calm reassurance that everything would be okay and that the worst might be a restricted water supply and concomitant loss in water pressure.

Residents were warned not to stockpile water which would further stress an already compromised system.

All of these were real worries. We have seen what happens in other cities, notably Kimberley in recent years when the water supply was not reconnected on schedule and residents descended into panic, bringing out the worst in humanity and further delaying the resumption of normal service.

This never happened this week. This was a massive job as seen on videos posted to social media by the city, with the potential for unimaginable disruption and a breakdown in social cohesion if it had gone awry.

Most residents never felt the difference – a quiet testimony to a job well done by highly skilled public servants. We know you are out there, and we salute you.