Daily water cuts spark outrage: Johannesburg residents demand urgent action amid infrastructure collapse

After years of taps running dry and a system that often looks like a Day Zero scenario (when water runs out), the Coronationville community took to the streets on 16 October, stopping traffic and setting fires to protest against their plight. 

Coronationville is part of the Commando System of reservoirs that are so run-down that their systems deprive hundreds of thousands of people of their constitutional right to water. Johannesburg’s water utility says it will take funding of R1-billion to R3-billion to do emergency fixes to the system, but the council is not funding these because its budgets hit record deficits. Johannesburg is run by a quasi-privatised model where utilities are responsible for important municipal services like water, electricity, waste management, roads and digital infrastructure. 

The Rahima Moosa Mother and Children’s Hospital, one of the province’s largest, falls under the Commando System and is so entrapped by it that it runs on a borehole pumped by the charity, Gift of the Givers. Julia Evans reported here in October 2022 on what life is like in the area. This article shows how the wider area (Hursthill, Melville, Auckland Park and surrounds), which includes the University of Johannesburg, is affected by cuts so constant they have become the norm.  

Every day residents tip off the Daily Maverick to frequent (almost daily) water cuts which also affect all schools (which often have to close) and old age homes in the area. 

On 13 October, residents had had enough and blocked the main road through the township which is one major arterial connection to Kliptown and the wider Soweto. Parts of Alex and Soweto are also regularly starved of water as Johannesburg Water’s reservoirs and storage systems creak under the twin weights of age and underinvestment. This article reported on how cadre deployment is affecting Johannesburg Water’s supply.  

Five slides from Johannesburg Water’s turnaround strategy recently tabled at the council explain the crisis and state of infrastructure. They show:

1. Decline in revenue collection;
2. How capital expenditure in the water system has declined as bad debts shoot up;
3. Efficiency declines;
4. Water cuts and sewage pipe bursts; and
5. Declining storage capacity. DM

Graphs created with ChatGPT.