‘No ways’: Rand Water on calls for its CEO to resign

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Rand Water says it has noted calls for its chief executive officer (CEO) Sipho Mosai to resign.

This comes after the Democratic Alliance(DA) petition calling for an end to Mosai’s tenure at the state-owned entity.

According to Solly Msimanga, the DA Gauteng Premier Candidate, municipalities in Gauteng have been saddled with a water shortage crisis that is not of their making.

“Consistent failures on the part of Rand Water(RW) to both adequately prepare for increased demand, and to address the failings within the organisation make it clear that RW is yet another rudderless ship.

“Due to the lack of maintenance and management of their water reticulation system RW has caused massive water shortages in Gauteng that have left some residents without water for over a month,” he said.

Msimanga lashed out at RW’s failure to communicate with municipalities and Gauteng residents about water shortage which he said they [RW] are to be blamed.

The water utility says this call is misplaced and unwarranted precisely because it has been at pains to contextualise and explain the current water challenges in its area of operation.

Spokesperson Makenosi Maroo said they are currently supplying an average of 4 717 Mℓ/d to customers and have the maximum supply capacity of 5 150Mℓ/d in our area operations.

“Our capacity is also in line with its abstraction license issued by the department of water and
sanitation.

“It is worth noting that we are currently over-abstracting and producing water well above our permitted abstraction limit. This over abstraction is necessitated by the high demand from municipalities.

“We work closely with municipalities to ensure seamless water supply in the value chain. To single out and apportion every water outage on RW demonstrates an unexplained ignorance of the water supply value chain by the political party.

“However we are not surprised that these facts and initiatives have been deliberately ignored by the DA in Gauteng given that Msimanga did inform the RW management that he plans to run a political campaign on water issues leading up to the elections next year,” she explained.

Maroo stated that the campaign plan was shared with their team during Msimanga’s visit in April 2022.

She added; “It is rather unfortunate that he would have chosen such an important commodity for political expedience in the name of seeking glory at the next election polls.

“We are able and have the capacity to supply water to our municipal customers. However, it should be noted that during this time of the year, water demand outstrips supply capacity.

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“Since the beginning of spring, RW’s bulk water provision to municipalities has increased from an average of 4 300 million litres of water a day to 4 800 million litres of water a day.

“It is evident that the challenge is not lack of capacity to supply water, but rather high consumption because of this hot period”.

Maroo said instead of politicking, the DA should be assisting RW and its municipalities to urge all consumers to use water sparingly during this currently being experienced in the country.

“Selectively apportioning the blame at RW doorsteps and its CEO is not helpful in mobilizing those that have water to use it sparingly so that it reaches highly lying areas experiencing sporadic water supply,” she concluded.