Achieving Excellence in Service Delivery

Johannesburg Water (SOC) Limited was established in January 2001 by the City of Johannesburg to be its water and sanitation service provider. It has established its Head Quarter office at 17 Harrison Street, Marshalltown in the Joburg CBD.

In a relatively short time the utility has made enormous strides towards improving service delivery and environmental compliances through the City

Operations 

• Drinking water quality has compliance in terms of microbiology quality. The SANS standard is 99%.
• Drinking water testing and sampling has increased four fold in the past ten years. Currently more than 500 water samples are tested monthly across the City, including informal areas.
• The level of effluent treatment at JW’s waste water treatment is very high and surpasses standards set by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. Compliance on final treated waste water regularly exceeds 97% on monthly basis.
• 100% of solids extracted from the wastewater treatment process are now disposed according to national guidelines (compared to 50% twelfth years ago).
• The average response time to technical complaints (water pipebursts and sewer overflows) has been shortened by 40%.

Customer Services

The Customer Services Helpline is now fully integrated with the City's Joburg Connect Service Number - 011 375 5555 and delivers the following level of services.

• 90% of incoming calls are answered within 30 seconds.
• The call centres receives on average 49 500 calls monthly.
• The average turn around time for service complaints is four days. Major pipe bursts and sewage overflows are dealt with within 24 hours, and meter replacements are dealt with on average within 4 days.
• The billing hotline receives on average 18 647 calls a month.

  

Infrastructure Investment

• JW spent R 786 million on new capital projects in the 2008/2009 financial year
• JW began implementing its Free Essential Water programme from  July 2001
• The costs directly managed by JW have decreased substantially over the period. This has allowed the company to tariffs in line with inflation despite above inflation increases in some of our significant imports.

Low income service

Johannesburg Water is committed to improving and upgrading service levels in low-income areas of the City in a way that is sustainable, cost-effective, affordable and involves community participation. Various innovative projects that have been launched to achieve this:

• Ventilated Improved Pit latrines (VIP) to improve the sanitation level in informal settlement.
• Communal standpipes within 200m walking distance to provide access to basic water in informal settlements.
• The company provides free water and sanitation services to informal settlements throughout the City.

Fact and Figures

Johannesburg Water:

• Supplies the City with over 530 million kilolitres of water per annum.
• Has a turn over ± R4 billion.
• Serves approximately 3.8 million people.
• Employs approximately 2360 staff.
• Owns and operates 89 water reservoirs, 28 water towers and 6 wastewater treatment works.
• Maintains 11,930km of water distribution networks and 10,730km of sewer networks.