Johannesburg residents could soon be fined for failing to abide by new water restrictions the City said on Tuesday.
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The City of Johannesburg has appealed for an immediate 15% cut in water consumption.
Level 2 restrictions, which were introduced in November previous year, included not using municipal water to wash cars. Users are compelled not to water their gardens between 06:00 and 18:00. This will be achieved by governing the flow of water through the bulk water supply meters of Johannesburg Water. Only hose pipes, buckets and water cans may be used to water gardens.
Washing of cars with hose pipes is restricted and residents may not use sprinklers at any time. “Residents are encouraged to start saving water immediately‚” Johannesburg Water said.
The restrictions are only in place while the drought is ongoing.
Still said the introduced drastic measures included completely prohibiting the use of sprinklers and adding an additional levy on existing water restriction tariffs.
“We may well be in for a dry early spring, but there are prospects for good rains from late November, early December”, the city said.
“We have to bring in JMPD”.
“JMPD has probably never been asked to help with this sort of stuff”.
“We do not want to go to level 3 water restrictions”. Fines would be added to their municipal bills.
With each transgression, those reported could face a fine of up to R1 500.
Johannesburg Water said it will throttle the system in the evenings from 8.00pm – 4.00am in high-demand areas when those residents are sleeping.
According to the MMC, Rand Water will reduce their supply to Johannesburg Water with 15 percent from 6 September.
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Asked what else Johannesburg Water was doing to save water, Still said they have active leak detection and water network pressure modulation. “So far a 20% increase in demand for boreholes since the start of this year has been shown”.
