An increase in population, old infrastructure and vandalism are just some of the issues leading to sewer blockages in the Ekurhuleni area, according to the municipality.  

Municipality (EMM) recently attributed sewer blockages to recently highlighted factors responsible for sewer blockages in the municipality.

The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) has been experiencing population growth at a rate of 2.5% over the last 10 years.

According to the municipality the problem of population growth is particularly acute in high density townships as there is always some backyard households not ordinarily accommodated in the design of the sewer infrastructure. This results in massive pressure on the sewer system.

Infrastructure backlogs

EMM is also sitting on at least R700 million worth of overdue sewer infrastructure upgrades and replacement.

The implication of having such a huge backlog is that infrastructure that has outlived its usefulness continues to render service notwithstanding the poor service arising from the use of such infrastructure.

To overcome these challenge the municipality says it continuously anticipates all infrastructure upgrade requirements and updates infrastructure upgrading plans annually.

“To this end we have identified sewer upgrading and replacement programs with a total value of R3.5 billion.

“Priorities have been identified based on the frequency of pipe bursts. EMM is actively finalising a grand programme to address all immediate and medium term infrastructure upgrading and replacement backlogs. Notwithstanding this mega programme, all blockages will be attended within 48hrs in terms of our service standards,” says Themba Gadebe spokesperson for the municipality.