{"id":98877,"date":"2025-07-03T18:08:55","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/?p=98877"},"modified":"2025-07-03T18:08:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:08:55","slug":"water-crisis-exposes-governance-failures-in-johannesburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/water-crisis-exposes-governance-failures-in-johannesburg\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Crisis Exposes Governance Failures in Johannesburg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za<\/a>
\n3-minute read
\n03 July 2025 | 15:45 CAT<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

\ud83d\udcf7 A dry tap and mounting frustration in Johannesburg suburbs.<\/p><\/div>\n

As taps run dry in large parts of Johannesburg, residents are not only battling water shortages, but also silence from the city\u2019s water utility, Johannesburg Water.<\/p>\n

With maintenance underway at Rand Water\u2019s Eikenhof pumping station, water supply to the city has been cut by half. Yet, it\u2019s not the supply issue drawing outrage, but Johannesburg Water\u2019s lack of communication and crisis planning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the responsibility of Johannesburg Water to communicate directly with residents,\u201d said Councillor Tyrell Meyer in an interview with Radio Islam<\/a>.<\/em> \u201cWe are clients of Johannesburg Water not Rand Water, so the city must be accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

In areas like Kensington, Malvern, and Mondeor, residents have endured days and even weeks without water. \u201cPeople are struggling especially the elderly and sick, because water is not just for drinking, it\u2019s for hygiene,\u201d Meyer warned. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a return to the bucket system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frustrations are compounded by what Meyer described as an \u201cincompetent Johannesburg Water board\u201d lacking technical expertise in water circulation. \u201cWe\u2019ve had crises like this before, and yet they keep responding reactively,\u201d he said, referring to a March incident where some communities went without water for two weeks due to issues at the Zuikerbosch plant.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we need now is not just transparency, but legislative pressure to force these entities to communicate,\u201d he argued. He called for a permanent \u201cwar room\u201d between Johannesburg Water and Rand Water to anticipate and plan around maintenance, manage impacted areas, and proactively prevent breakdowns.<\/p>\n

As Johannesburg\u2019s infrastructure teeters, it is not just a technical issue, it is, as Meyer puts it, \u201ca full-blown governance failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen<\/strong> to the full interview on The Daily Round-Up<\/em><\/a> with Moulana Junaid Kharsany and Councillor Tyrell Meyer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za 3-minute read 03 July 2025 | 15:45 CAT As taps run dry in large parts of Johannesburg, residents are not only battling water shortages, but also silence from the city\u2019s water utility, Johannesburg Water. With maintenance underway at Rand Water\u2019s Eikenhof pumping station, water supply to the city has been cut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":98878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28,4995],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-south-africa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Dry-Tap.jpg?fit=225%2C225&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pc0QIf-pIN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 17:48:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}