Desperation fuels unity as Claremont residents rally in 12-year fight for water

Claudette Abrahams is the official voice of this small community, not by design, by out of desperation because absolutely no one was listening to them.

She had to stop working because of stress and now marshals her tight-knit community in their fight for water. Earlier this year she contacted WaterCAN, a citizen-led water rights organisation, because no City of Johannesburg official took them seriously.

“Dr Ferrial Adam (from WaterCAN) urged me to get involved on a more serious level. Because I am so tired of living this life, I decided that I was going to fight. I started recruiting people for a protest, and although only five turned up, we got noticed,” she said.

Now Abrahams sits on the City’s water committee and makes her voice heard. She said: “They can’t keep Claremont quiet anymore. I have met with the mayor’s bomb squad and Joburg Water, and now things are starting to move.”

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The promise to Abrahams and her community is that water will flow by 25 October 2025. A logger has been installed in one of the flats to monitor water flow and consumption, pipes will be replaced, and they will be connected to the Claremont direct line.

Joburg mayor Dada Morero and Joburg Water officials visited the affected residents last month and promised to build a new pipeline to increase water supply.

Morero said for the municipal flats, water leak detection loggers have been installed and a repair team has been deployed to work on it. The promise is water restoration by 25 October this year.

“We will have to undertake work to repair those pipes and repair all the valves and pipes that supply water to the flats, and these valves are suspected to be faulty or have been tampered with," Morero said.

Not that anyone is holding out hope. They have been ignored for too long by too many officials and politicians.

Jillian Singh, a mother of four, is angry. 

“There have been so many promises, but they are never kept. We are forgotten. Westbury gets all the attention, but we have suffered longer than Westbury and Coronationville. We don’t matter. Our kids don’t matter. They are not serving us at all,” said a disappointed Singh.

She had an emergency C-section last year and came home to no water. While her prematurely born son Kieraan was in hospital, she had to carry 25 litres of water to her home.

“I had no time to heal, no water to wash myself, or my other children. One of the political parties came and installed a 750-litre JoJo tank outside the flats, but the water trucks don’t come regularly to fill it up. These people do not care,” she said.

When Joburg Water technicians arrive to check on a water drain, Jillian and Kieraan sit by and watch to make sure the technicians aren’t harassed or robbed.

‘We have our own bucket system here’

At about midday groups of youngsters, armed with 25-litre plastic water cans, amble over to Tannie Minkie’s to fill up. Although she lives metres away from the flats without water, her water comes from the Claremont direct line. The tap is frequently stolen, so she replaces it so that her community can have water with which to cook and clean.

Through a garden filled with medicinal herbs the line waits patiently. 

“If it wasn’t for Tannie Minkie, we would have even less water,” says Abrahams. Tannie Minkie is up every morning at 5am to pray for her community, and she has painted religious slogans on the walls around her property and generally looks out for everyone.

“You see, we joke about our own bucket system here in Claremont. We do not deserve this,” says Abrahams.

This bucket system makes sure that Tannie Elizabeth Naudé, who walks around with a bullet in her lung thanks to gang warfare outside the flats, has water to cook with. She cannot carry heavy loads due to a hip replacement, so she pays the youngsters a few rand to fetch water for her.

Tannie Daphne Breda’s nine-year-old granddaughter Teliah hovers around, concerned that when she goes back to school her granny will not cope. Tannie Daphne has brittle bones and lifting anything more than 5 litres is quite dangerous for her. So little Teliah lugs around the heavy containers.

“I feel sick all the time because we do not have water to wash and clean properly. When we get a bit of water it’s usually between 1am and 4am. This morning, I got up at 1.30am and I got four litres of water before the taps dried up again. I am just so disappointed,” says Tannie Elizabeth.

As we walk away, the two tannies start apologising for the walls outside their flats; they are really upset that they cannot wash the dirt off the walls.

A fierce community with a can-do spirit

There are empty plastic containers everywhere. Most residents of the flats have two or more 20-litre plastic urns in which they heat water to bath and cook. The urns take about an hour to heat up, so Mazanette Chadinha-Gates gets up at 3am to switch on the urns. Her husband wakes at four and has a bath. Their two girls use up the rest of the hot water before going to school. 

Leftover water is dosed with bleach and then used to flush toilets. More water is heated for washing dishes and cleaning.

The 750l JoJo tank outside their flat is filled when there is municipal water, but it only lasts three to four days for a family of four. The water is only used for washing and cooking.

“My 10-year-old daughter does not know what a normal water supply looks like. Our children have never seen water running out of taps. They only know about the buckets,” says Mazanette.

She is remarkably stoic about the situation. 

“We can’t let this beat us. We have to make the best of the situation.”

No water means that birthday and wedding celebrations take place at the Spur or the Botanical Gardens. Funeral gatherings can’t take place because there is no water to wash dishes or prepare food.

After 12 years of empty taps, no one here wants pity. They just want water. DM

This story is produced by Our City News, a non-profit newsroom that serves the people of Johannesburg.