By KRUGERSDORP — As dry taps continue to test the patience of Mogale City residents, Executive Mayor Lucky Sele has moved to distance the local municipality from financial blame while pointing directly to bulk infrastructure failures outside local control.
In a statement released Monday, Mayor Sele addressed the persistent water supply disruptions plaguing households, schools, and local businesses, insisting that the crisis stems from regional power failures rather than municipal mismanagement.
Financial Clearance and External Failures
Central to Mayor Sele’s response is a defence of Mogale City’s fiscal record. Amid widespread public frustration, the Mayor confirmed that the municipality is fully paid up with bulk supplier Rand Water and carries no historical debt that would trigger penalizing water cut-offs.
Instead, officials attribute the latest operational breakdown to a complete power outage at Rand Water’s Eikenhof Booster Pumping Station. The incident occurred at approximately 17:20 on Sunday, August 23, following an electricity supply disruption from Johannesburg’s City Power. The outage cascaded through regional distribution networks, draining critical reservoir levels that feed Mogale City.
“Mogale City is up to date with its financial obligations to Rand Water,” Sele stated, emphasizing that the town is suffering from collateral damage caused by external bulk infrastructure.
Intergovernmental Tension and Public Discontent
The breakdown underscores long-standing systemic vulnerabilities across Gauteng’s interconnected water and electricity grids. While Eikenhof’s pumping infrastructure and City Power’s electrical grid remain outside Mogale City’s jurisdiction, local administrators face the immediate political fallout from angry ratepayers.
Mayor Sele signalled growing impatience with neighbouring institutions, declaring that the municipality will not “normalise recurring water interruptions”. The Mayor confirmed active intergovernmental engagements with Rand Water and external stakeholders to demand urgent repairs and push for a more resilient regional supply framework.
Short-Term Interventions
As reservoir levels recover, municipal officials have outlined the following immediate steps:
- Active Intergovernmental Advocacy: Escalating bulk infrastructure reliability issues to provincial and sector structures.
- Local Mitigation: Implementing municipal intervention measures to cushion the impact on severely affected communities.
- Public Guidance: Urging residents to strictly conserve existing water supplies while systems remain constrained.
The Office of the Executive Mayor has pledged to issue further updates as Rand Water and City Power work to restore full operations at the Eikenhof station. However, with regional infrastructure under constant strain, local leaders remain under intense pressure to turn diplomatic engagements into guaranteed supply at the tap.
