City of Johannesburg executive mayor Dada Morero says that the city is facing a water crisis. (Lubabalo Lesolle/Gallo Images)
The City of Johannesburg is facing a severe water crisis because of ongoing drought conditions, high levels of non-revenue water, illegal connections and infrastructure problems, said executive mayor Dada Morero.
Morero was addressing a media briefing on Wednesday to update residents on the state of the city’s water supply and systems, demand management initiatives and the mitigation plans “to provide relief to our residents” amid widespread and ongoing outages.
The Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS) is the city’s primary water source, which Morero said was under severe strain “with reservoir levels dropping to critical thresholds”.
But the water and sanitation department’s latest data (28 October) shows the IVRS is at 73.6%, compared with 88.1% during the same period last year, while the Vaal Dam is at 34.8%, compared with 75% during the previous period.
“The Vaal Dam is low but the IVRS is not under severe strain,” said Ferrial Adam, the executive manager of non-profit WaterCAN. “When Cape Town was experiencing Day Zero, their rivers and dams were hitting 20%.”
It would be more accurate to say that the city’s reservoir levels are “leaking to critical thresholds”, Adam said.
On Morero citing drought conditions, Adam referred to the latest monthly drought bulletin issued by the South African Weather Service in September, which noted that rainfall received during September 2024 was near-normal to above-normal across most of the country.
But below-normal rainfall occurred in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the southern and central parts of Limpopo as well as in isolated areas of the Western Cape extending to small adjacent areas of the Northern and Eastern Cape.
Adam noted: “In September, the South African Weather Service said Gauteng is quite dry and it’s not majorly dramatic as of yet. But we need to keep monitoring.
“If we are in a drought, why are we only at level 1 water restrictions?I do think we’ve had a really dry start to the summer but you can’t then classify it as a drought.”
At a virtual meeting of parliament’s portfolio committee on water and sanitation on Gauteng’s water crisis last week, Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina, emphasised that Gauteng is “really not affected” by drought. “The Gauteng situation is out of self-inflicted pain by municipalities who don’t want to cooperate,” she said.
Johannesburg Water must strike a “difficult balancing act” to handle water consumption that is outpacing supply, according to Morero.
“This is mainly caused by uncertainty surrounding future trends in population expansion, water demand, infrastructure investment needs and budget constraints. These challenges place immense strain on our bulk water system and jeopardise the sustainability of the water supply.”
It’s about more than consumption, he said. “The unaccounted-for water lost through leaks is equally concerning. Better water demand management is required to address the excessive use and water losses.”
Morero said that a five-year water conservation and demand management strategy had been developed and approved.
Interventions include repairing leaking reservoirs and tower infrastructure; repairs to and replacement of zonal bulk water meters and pipe replacement. The strategy aims to reduce demand by 37 123 megalitres (million litres) a year, from the technical interventions. Water conservation initiatives would further reduce demand.
Johannesburg Water has an infrastructure renewal backlog of R26 billion and water infrastructure accounting for R11 billion. “Funding limitations are delaying the eradication of this backlog resulting in further ageing of infrastructure,” Morero said.
“They do say that they are financially constrained,” Adam added. “Then they go and have a big five-year plan that repairs our leaking reservoirs and infrastructure. We know that, of the 42 leaking reservoirs, they are only going to fix 20.
“If we look at water pipe replacement, we’ve got 12 000km of water pipes in the city. As far as I know, Johannesburg Water only has funding to fix 14km a year … Then I can’t help but question the strategy, to think if it’s going to get us out of the trouble that we’re in.”
Although she believed there is an understanding by authorities of the “state of disaster” the city is in, “they don’t have the capacity to do too much about it because they don’t have money. If you’re going to fix 14km of 12 000km pipes, sorry, you are trying to fill a leaking bucket.”
Morero said that restrictions are being implemented on the top 30 bulk supply meters, which account for 97% of the city’s total consumption.
“With Johannesburg’s population on the rise, the need for a robust and efficient water supply and sanitation system is paramount. We are also working on improving its water billing systems and investigating areas where non-revenue water is rising.”
He said that teams had been set up to review billing volumes and the metering system is “being enhanced to track revenue and non-revenue water more effectively”.
Level 1 water restrictions are in place. These are implemented annually from 1 September until 31 March the following year.
“The restrictions prohibit the use of hosepipes to water gardens, wash cars, clean driveways and fill up swimming pools and water features.”
Adam said: “If they just focused, as a start, on government buildings and properties, of the 30% that the city is losing to leaks and billing, I really think we could reduce our leaks.
“If they just target government buildings themselves, they may be able to reduce that significantly but they keep blaming consumers, illegal connections and theft, etcetera but theft is also people who are not paying and I think government departments have buildings that are not paying.”
Getting their own house in order would build trust and inspire people to save water themselves. Without this, the next few months would be a struggle, Adam said.
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