Social unrest warning for South Africa as crisis hits
Residents in South Africa’s economic hub of Johannesburg clashed with police during a protest about a lack of water supply in areas west of the city centre.
People blocked vehicle traffic with burning tyres and fought police at a key intersection in the suburb of Westbury on Wednesday (27 November).
Law enforcement officials arrested one person, broadcaster eNCA reported.
Separately, members of the Democratic Alliance, an opposition party in the city, handed over a memorandum of issues to Executive Mayor Dada Morero about the ongoing water outages.
The party noted that some residents haven’t had a supply for 70 days.
The party called on the leader to dissolve the board of Johannesburg Water, the utility that distributes in the region.
Morero of the African National Congress, the country’s biggest political party, reclaimed the mayorship of Johannesburg in August, marking the 10th time the post had changed hands since 2016.
About 40% of Johannesburg’s water supply goes to waste through leaking pipes, while 35% of its electricity is lost, often through the theft of cables, which causes power cuts and people bypassing their meters to steal.
“This is persisting — this is nothing new; this is more than 30 years of infrastructure neglect that we are seeing, all because we are seeing insufficient budgeting allocated to Johannesburg Water,” Nico de Jager, the DA’s shadow leader for infrastructure in the provincial legislature of Gauteng, where Johannesburg is situated, said in a video posted on X.
Gauteng is home to 12 million people.
Like South Africa’s power plants and transport networks, the country’s water supply systems have deteriorated due to inadequate maintenance, a lack of planning for population growth, mismanagement, corruption, and political infighting.
In October, Rand Water — the continent’s largest bulk supplier that provides water to Gauteng’s cities — warned that taps may soon run dry if municipalities don’t act on its recommendations to fix leaks and conserve water.
Gauteng’s municipalities routinely draw more water than the amount allocated to them.
In 2023, Tshwane — which includes the capital of Pretoria — battled the country’s worst cholera outbreak in 15 years in an incident that authorities tied to an overloaded wastewater system.
Water scientist Dr Anthony Turton said the water supply is being mismanaged in Gauteng, resulting in water shortages in parts of the provinces while dams are sufficiently full.
“If we manage our water wisely, we have enough to grow our economy and population. The problem is that we are not managing it wisely. It is not a water scarcity issue. It is an institutional failure issue.”
This is not only a national institutional failure but also a severe local issue, with municipalities failing to maintain and upgrade their water infrastructure.
Local municipalities have shown they cannot correct problems despite multiple warnings and signs of failure.
“We can say that places like Johannesburg Water are a perfect example of state failure at a local level,” Turton said.
CEO of the South African Chamber, Benoit Le Roy, agreed with Turton that the problem is inadequate maintenance and investment from the water distributors and municipalities.
“We need to fix the leaking buckets. It will cost about R25 billion to fix Johannesburg’s water infrastructure, and you cannot do it overnight,” Le Roy said.
He estimated that if work began now to upgrade and develop Johannesburg’s water infrastructure, residents would feel the effect in a year to 18 months.
“We need to move. That is the big thing. We are talking a lot and raising awareness, but we are not moving.”
Reported with Bloomberg
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