Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za
3-minute read
03 July 2025 | 15:45 CAT

📷 A dry tap and mounting frustration in Johannesburg suburbs.

As taps run dry in large parts of Johannesburg, residents are not only battling water shortages, but also silence from the city’s water utility, Johannesburg Water.

With maintenance underway at Rand Water’s Eikenhof pumping station, water supply to the city has been cut by half. Yet, it’s not the supply issue drawing outrage, but Johannesburg Water’s lack of communication and crisis planning.

“It is the responsibility of Johannesburg Water to communicate directly with residents,” said Councillor Tyrell Meyer in an interview with Radio Islam. “We are clients of Johannesburg Water not Rand Water, so the city must be accountable.”

Rand Water, a national supplier, had issued maintenance notices as early as May. Yet, Meyer says the city entity only called a meeting with councillors a day before the outages were due to begin. “There was sufficient time to plan, to assemble a war room and deploy tankers. Instead, councillors are reporting tankers arriving as late as 10pm or not at all.”

In areas like Kensington, Malvern, and Mondeor, residents have endured days and even weeks without water. “People are struggling especially the elderly and sick, because water is not just for drinking, it’s for hygiene,” Meyer warned. “We’re seeing a return to the bucket system.”

Frustrations are compounded by what Meyer described as an “incompetent Johannesburg Water board” lacking technical expertise in water circulation. “We’ve had crises like this before, and yet they keep responding reactively,” he said, referring to a March incident where some communities went without water for two weeks due to issues at the Zuikerbosch plant.

Even as Rand Water resumed pumping at Eikenhof and Zwartkopjes stations, Meyer noted that reservoir recovery is slow and any rush by residents to use water once it returns risks depleting the system further.

“What we need now is not just transparency, but legislative pressure to force these entities to communicate,” he argued. He called for a permanent “war room” between Johannesburg Water and Rand Water to anticipate and plan around maintenance, manage impacted areas, and proactively prevent breakdowns.

As Johannesburg’s infrastructure teeters, it is not just a technical issue, it is, as Meyer puts it, “a full-blown governance failure.”

Listen to the full interview on The Daily Round-Up with Moulana Junaid Kharsany and Councillor Tyrell Meyer.