Maintenance part of catching up on underinvestment: SA Water Chamber

JOHANNESBURG - The SA Water Chamber said Rand Water is playing catch-up with its planned shutdown in Johannesburg.

WATCH: Joburg residents unhappy with planned water outage

City residents are preparing for a 58-hour outage from tonight and the chamber says they're paying for decades of under-investment.

SA Water Chamber CEO Benoit Le Roy said, "this is part of the bigger plan. The Water and Sanitation [Department] masterplan was published after a lot public pressure from 2018 after being absent for decades showing there is uninvested gap of R900-billion in water and sanitation infrastructure…."

"What we see in Johannesburg at the moment and many parties of the country and including eThekwini and Nelson Mandela Bay and obviously outside of the metros are the symptoms of under investment over the last two to two and half decade."  

"And what we are doing now is playing catchup at the expense of the economy and dignity of people so this is the tip of the iceberg."