Morero set to appear in Parly to explain his plan for dealing with Joburg's water problems

Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero is expected to explain to Parliament on Friday his plan for dealing with the city’s water woes.

The water and sanitation committee also wants him to explain why four billion rand was siphoned out of Joburg Water to fill municipal coffers.

As the committee on Tuesday again grappled with municipalities’ inability to provide water, MPs made jibes about President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to African National Congress (ANC) councillors at a party gathering on Monday that they should learn from Democratic Alliance (DA)-run municipalities.

The water and sanitation department said there’d been mixed success in the withholding of equitable share funding to municipalities until they commit to paying water boards on time.

The MK Party’s Visvin Reddy said the cooperative governance department had to be more proactive to intervene, and that President Cyril Ramaphosa had thrown his councillors under the bus by blaming them for poor service delivery.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)’s Makoti Khawula, however, thought Ramaphosa had misled his councillors by praising DA-run municipalities, but committee chairperson, the DA’s Leon Basson, disagreed.

"He’s given the direction, the right direction, where they should go and learn."

ActionSA’s Malebo Kobe, meanwhile, expressed doubt that municipalities would be able to channel water from the Lesotho Highlands Project when the time comes, and said that Morero should appear before the committee.

Basson said this was already being scheduled.

"It is at the end of the day, the community that is suffering and he needs to tell us why, and what plans are on the table."

Basson said the committee would go on oversight visits to KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng municipalities at the end of October for first-hand observation of the water problems.

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• Westbury residents sceptical of Morero's water supply solutions

• Morero: CoJ to switch off water in other areas to boost reservoirs supplying Westbury

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