Since the latter part of 2023, hardly a week has gone by without some residents of Johannesburg, South Africa\u2019s commercial capital, losing their water supply. Notices of\u00a0planned\u00a0outages from the local water authority are a common occurrence. Unplanned water shutdowns also happen regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The entire city has been affected \u2013 shanty towns,\u00a0less affluent\u00a0and\u00a0more affluent parts of the city. The Conversation Africa asked geography professor Craig Sheridan, director of the Centre in Water Research and Development at the University of the Witwatersrand, what\u2019s gone wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why don\u2019t Johannesburg citizens have enough water?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The water allocation for each province is based on the amount available in the dams (which must also supply our future needs) and the number of people in that province. Currently, the Vaal Dam is\u00a070% full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rand Water \u2013 the area\u2019s bulk water supplier \u2013 buys the water from the Department of Water and Sanitation, which will only sell a certain amount to it. Rand Water takes water mainly from the Vaal Dam \u2013 the region\u2019s biggest \u2013 and treats it to potable quality. It then sells the water to Johannesburg and Pretoria (and other cities and towns) which are in Gauteng, the smallest of South Africa\u2019s nine provinces and its industrial heartland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cities sell the water to their residents through their distribution systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rand Water is not allowed to supply more than the amount set by the Department of Water and Sanitation. But there is a mismatch between what\u2019s allocated by the national government and what\u2019s needed on the ground. This is because the national government takes into consideration future needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why can\u2019t new dams be built to supply more water?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the plan. But the next phase (Phase 2) of the Lesotho Highlands Scheme is\u00a0eight years behind schedule.\u00a0The\u00a0Lesotho Highlands Water Project\u00a0is a multinational project to provide water to the Gauteng region of South Africa and to generate hydro-electricity for Lesotho. Work on the dam design started in 2017 and tender design was completed during 2020. Construction is expected to be completed with commissioning expected in 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This eight-year delay roughly coincided with a period during which the population of Gauteng grew from 12 million to\u00a015.1 million people. In 2023 the province had the same amount of water storage for a population that had grown by over 3 million people (or 25%), because the dam was not built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is now substantially less water for everyone in the province, including residents of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why are Joburg residents struggling to get water?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The City of Johannesburg is running\u00a0its finances poorly. The maintenance bill for water infrastructure is R2 billion (US$105 million) per year, but only R1 billion (US$52 million) is allocated. Maintenance needs are spiralling out of control. The city bills residents for rates, water, electricity, sewage and other services. However, the funds received are not ring-fenced. Other projects are competing for the same pot of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the infrastructure is ageing (for example, in the suburb of Parkwood, the infrastructure is older than 70 years), the pipes rust and break. When they break, they leak, sometimes releasing very large quantities of water, before they are repaired. When the city responds to requests by residents for repairs, the response, if it comes, is often too little and the job is poorly done. There is little oversight or accountability by the city to ensure the contractors have done the job correctly and the repairs often do not last long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, 15 million people are relying on a system designed for far fewer people. When everyone starts to use water, there just isn\u2019t enough to go around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is also an additional factor in this discussion: non-revenue water. This is the term used for water that\u2019s unbilled by the city \u2013 in other words, free water, unauthorised consumption or water lost due to leakages. This is water that is supplied by Rand Water, but is essentially \u201cfinancially lost\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In South Africa, the government gives a\u00a0free basic allowance\u00a0of 6,000 litres per month to every household.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gauteng has non-revenue water of\u00a049.2%\u00a0(pages 25 to 27) \u2013 in other words, almost half the water that\u2019s supplied to the cities in the province cannot be charged for (by the cities) because it forms part of the basic allowance, is lost through leaks or is stolen. By comparison, Denmark has non-revenue water of about\u00a07%. Chile, also a country with a variable climate, has urban non-revenue water of about\u00a032%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of the non-revenue water, the leakage portion for Gauteng is\u00a0half. In other words, for every four litres provided to Gauteng by Rand Water, one litre is wasted through leakage (the city\u2019s fault) and one litre is either given away for free (public good), stolen (the public\u2019s fault), or not accounted for (much harder to allocate blame). This means only half of what is provided can be charged for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now to water usage. The average consumption in Gauteng is\u00a0279 litres\u00a0per person per day. This is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Gauteng citizens use too much, the cities waste way too much, and there is too much theft of drinking water<\/strong>. The social pact is breaking down as a consequence. This is indicated by the number of civic action groups forming, for example,\u00a0WaterCAN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To restore this pact, the city needs to focus on non-revenue water, by allocating the correct and appropriate maintenance spend to fix and even renew the water network. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, citizens need to seriously consider their own water usage and how to reduce it. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The citizens of Cape Town<\/strong> were forced to face the possibility\u00a0of the taps running dry permanently\u00a0in 2018 during a five-year drought. Water consumption was\u00a0drastically limited<\/strong>, forcing people to become very water-conscious.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This has to become the new normal if there is to be uninterrupted water supply.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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