Karabo Sedibeng stands to reap about R1 000 a person a night for renting her house in Sandton to a group of delegates attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August.
But Sandton’s capacity to hold 65 000 official foreign bodies — and possibly many more protesters — has seriously been called into question.
This week, Sedibeng was nursing strong fears that faecal matter, of world class standards at that, is threatening to spew all over Sandton, as the present sewerage system is apparently already ”under tremendous strain”, according to unnamed civil engineers. ”It can only mean shit will happen in more ways than one,” Sedibeng moaned.
Possibly to allay the anxiety of Sedibeng and her neighbours, Johannesburg Water (Pty) Ltd, the water and sanitation service provider for Greater Johannesburg, issued a media statement this week saying it ”will be spending close to R5-million on sewer upgrading in Sandton [alone] in a run-up to the summit”.
With extensive use of CCTV cameras, the company has carried out an investigation of the sewer networks and, by the company’s own admission, some areas of improvement have been identified.
The Sandton collector sewer, reads the statement, is at present a 350mm-diameter pipeline but will be
upgraded to 600mm. To minimise traffic disruption, continues the reassuring statement, the company will make use of sophisticated ‘pipe jacking’ technology.
”This consists of tunnelling a pipe under the roads without affecting the traffic. The three crossings at Sandton Drive, Marie Street and William Nicol Drive will be ‘techno-jacked’.”
Many from whom comment on the possible crisis was sought remained tight-lipped. Johannesburg World Summit Company (Jowsco) communications manager Shantini Mun-three refused to comment as this was, in her words, ”a shitty issue”.
However, Jowsco disaster manager Peter Brink assured the Mail & Guardian that ”no shit will spill over Sandton” as the municipality is spending millions of rands to ”prevent precisely that from happening. I hope the money is worth it,” he said.