Mogale City's water leaks have been wasting millions of litres and costing taxpayers millions of rand, prompting Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation Jack Bloom to instruct mayor Lucky Sele to have the broken pipe fixed by Friday, 17 July 2026.
Bloom visited the West Rand municipality last Friday and was met by water leakages that have led to water shortages in the Munsieville township, among others.He told the municipality he would be back to check on the progress.
Hardly a month into his appointment, Bloom was on the ground visiting affected areas, including Kameelperd Avenue near the Dan Pienaarville Reservoir, which he said had lost an estimated 300 million litres of water worth about R5 million.He also noted persistent leaks at the Krugersdorp taxi rank, the corner of Van Riebeeck and Buiten streets, the Pratley Putty factory in Jackson Street and the Kenmare pump station.
Bloom said that after hearing that he would be visiting, the municipality had quickly repaired one of the leaks but not well.
"Last Friday, I was dismayed to discover that the hasty repair of a three-year-old water leak in Krugersdorp had failed just two days after my visit," he said.
Mogale City's spokesperson Adrian Amod dismissed the claim that the municipality had attended to the leak only because Bloom was coming.
"As the municipality endeavours to constantly conduct routine rapid response maintenance and repair work on its water infrastructure, as per received customer-reported queries or longer-term plans, unless there are factors impeding completion of repair work, maintenance is conducted regardless of a deadline given by the deputy minister.Therefore, the needed repair work under question is in line with our standard query resolution process," Amod said.
But Bloom said that was not true.Ward councillor Aloysha Jooste had evidence that she had first reported the leak in Dan Pienaarville in August 2023 and had repeatedly followed up on it.It was only after the municipality learnt of Bloom's visit that it rushed to repair the leak overnight.
Standing at the pipe still leaking water, DA councillor Tyrone Gray said: "Unfortunately, under the ANC-led government, the quality of the repair is such poor workmanship. If we want to see Mogale City functional, we need working infrastructure."
Amod denied that around 300 million litres of treated water was lost over the three years.He said it was around 35% of municipal drinking water lost.
"This is due to leaks, bypassed metres, ageing infrastructure, bursts caused by pressure surges, vandalism and damage and so on," he said.
Responding to Oral Questions in the National Assembly earlier this year, Deputy President Paul Mashatile acknowledged that much needed to be done to fix the water infrastructure.