At least 60% of Johannesburg without water: Mayor promises restoration in seven days

As Johannesburg enters its second week of widespread water outages, residents and businesses continue to grapple with severe disruptions to daily life.

Large parts of Johannesburg have been without water for more than a week due to high demand and infrastructure issues, prompting Mayor Dada Morero to announce emergency measures during a media briefing on Friday morning.

The crisis, triggered by electrical faults at the Mfuleni and Eikenhof pump stations, has affected residential areas, businesses, and public institutions, including the temporary closure of the Johannesburg High Court.

“We find this very unacceptable ourselves as the city. This is a pain to our customers and it shouldn’t be,” Morero said.

He assured residents that water supply should be restored within seven days as reservoirs return to proper levels.

Joburg’s water infrastructure challenges

Behind the immediate crisis lies a more complex infrastructure challenge that has plagued Johannesburg for years.

The city has a maintenance backlog with an estimated cost of R27 billion.

Morero acknowledged the ageing infrastructure issues and said the city has been in talks with National Treasury to find solutions to raise the necessary capital.

He added that the city is also tackling illegal connections and leaks where possible.

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Alternative water sources in Johannesburg

The city’s immediate response to the crisis has centred on emergency water provision, though these efforts have their own challenges.

To address immediate needs, the city has deployed 53 water tankers throughout affected areas. During the briefing, Morero admitted this number is insufficient.

He said he has instructed Joburg Water to provide more water tankers to communities affected by the outages.

“We are probably sitting at about 60% of Joburg that is affected, [sitting] without water and we believe that in the next seven days we would have resolved the supply,” Morero stated.

He added that in the next week all the city’s reservoirs will be full to capacity.

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Water crisis: Future prevention measures

Looking ahead, the city has asked City Power to implement alternative power supply solutions by July to prevent similar outages.

Additionally, a new reservoir will be launched in Brixton in April, which is expected to alleviate pressure in Auckland Park and surrounding regions.

Morero also announced plans to install borehole systems in informal settlements and public institutions.

“We are going to invest as part of a partnership with the provincial government on how we bring boreholes into schools, into hospitals, into clinics,” he said.

The initiative will begin with informal settlements like Phumla Mqashi when the new financial year starts on 1 July.

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Water consumption concerns

The crisis has also highlighted broader concerns about water consumption in the city.

While Morero emphasised that the system is not at risk of collapse, water provision remains threatened due to high consumption.

Johannesburg’s water demand has increased from 1 000 million litres per day in December-January to approximately 1 700 million litres in early February.

“We continue to call on our residents to find ways of using the water sparingly, to continue to call on those that are bypassing meters to also stop bypassing meters, calling on those that are illegally connecting into the system to stop,” Morero urged.

The mayor emphasised that the current crisis was unexpected and not part of planned maintenance like previous disruptions in December.