Johannesburg’s water crisis is likely to continue in the short-term despite the municipality’s water utility undertaking to spend hundreds of millions of rand on medium to long-term measures to address the persistent supply constraints.

Johannesburg Water this week indicated that it had commissioned projects to upgrade and augment the existing water infrastructure to address the persistent water supply constraints in the Brixton, Crosby, and Hursthill water supply district.

The Commando Meter System, which includes Crosby reservoir, Brixton reservoir and tower, and Hursthill 1 and 2 reservoirs, and supplies water to Johannesburg wards 58, 69, 86, and 87, as well as critical customers such as the Rahima Moosa and Helen Joseph hospitals, the University of Johannesburg, and the SABC.

According to Joburg Water, the R306 million Brixton reservoir, tower, and pump station, including the Crosby re-configuration project, is at the practical completion stage as testing and commissioning are in progress.

Another major initiative, the R311m New Crosby bulk infrastructure project, which includes a pump station, rising main, and Rand Water supply line, are scheduled to be completed in October, with progress now sitting at 36% construction activities complete.

The R26m Hursthill 1 reservoir refurbishment is expected to be completed in December, as it will be advertised by the end of this month. It entails sealing of the leaking reservoir and refurbishment of the associated pipework and fittings.

The refurbishment of Hursthill 2 reservoir, which Joburg Water stated will also cost R26m, has a completion date of September, with the project in construction and having realised 9% construction activities and also involves the sealing of the leaking reservoir and refurbishment of the associated pipework and fittings, as well as rehabilitation of the by-pass pipeline.

In addition, the Brixton Tower is low due to the maintenance of the second pump, which Joburg Water hoped would be completed by the end of next week.

On Friday, the City of Johannesburg promised residents, businesses, and institutions in Midrand, which has also been hard-hit by the water crisis, that water issues were receiving priority attention.

The municipality has also deployed new water tankers to enhance capacity and ensure consistent supply during infrastructure maintenance on the West Rand.

Cosatu in Gauteng has called on the City of Johannesburg and all relevant authorities to urgently resolve the water outage in Gauteng, and that emergency water tankers must be provided consistently and fairly while permanent solutions are implemented, and that clear communication with residents is also critical so communities know what is being done and when services will be restored.

“The continued failure to provide water has severely affected daily life in the community. Families are struggling to cook, clean, and maintain proper hygiene. Children are among the hardest hit, with some missing school because they cannot bathe or because households are spending hours searching for water instead of preparing learners for school,” the federation stated.

Cosatu warned that the lack of water also poses serious health risks.

“Poor sanitation can lead to the spread of diseases, especially among children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems. No community should be exposed to such dangers due to service delivery failures,” it added.

This week, Dr Ferrial Adam, executive director of WaterCAN (Water Community Action Network) – a civil society initiative driving water justice established by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse – complained that information reaching the public is fragmented, highly technical, does not give a clear understanding of the problem, and is often filtered through political channels.

“Although councillors are briefed, in an election year, this information is frequently repackaged for party-political purposes, which undermines clarity and public trust,” she said.

Adam urged Joburg Water’s senior management to institute daily, time-bound online briefings with civil society and the media for the duration of the crisis to provide clear, consistent updates on outages, recovery timelines, and constraints, explain technical issues in plain, accessible language for non-technical audiences, allow for limited questions to address misinformation and public concern and serve as a single, authoritative source of information for residents.

Compounding Joburg’s water woes was a shutdown by its employees on Friday, demanding the part of their performance bonuses that was not paid in December, and they descended on their employer’s head office in Newtown and blocked traffic in adjacent streets with the utility’s vehicles.

SA Municipal Workers’ Union Johannesburg regional chairperson Lebogang Ndawo on Saturday said Joburg Water employees held a general meeting to receive feedback on why their employer deducted 5% from their performance bonuses.

“The performance of some of the workers was beyond what the average of the company’s performance was, … then people that got beyond 95%, the company would then deduct 5% from them,” he explained.

Ndawo said this was done in order for the employees to fall between the 85% and 95% to pay one amount to them.

“As a result, we have been engaging with the employer, and the employer conceded that they have never consulted employees or labour on that issue before the deductions were made.

“This is despite the fact that already employees had consultations with their line managers in terms of the review of their performances, then they were shown their scores, which subsequently showed how much money they would get,” he added.

Ndawo further stated that on December 29, the amount of money they expected was not paid.

He said Joburg Water management informed unions that it was a unilateral decision taken by the utility’s board and instructed the executive management to either do the moderation, or that if they did not, the bonuses would not be paid at all.

“We believe it was unfair to workers as workers had worked very hard throughout the year, had exceeded performances and they were scored correctly, and we believe they should be paid according to the scores that they get,” Ndawo said.

He continued: “The unilateral decision taken by the employer is the reason that the employees then said because the employer does not want to listen to labour, let them go to head office and hear from the MD (managing director Ntshaveni Mukwevho) so that the MD can clearly explain to them why they must perform, and at the end of the day, after they have performed very well with the scores confirmed by their line managers, then someone else other than part of that process then decides that they should not get what they deserve and, in fact, just unilaterally deducts that money.”

On Saturday, Joburg Water said its standard turnaround time for responses was 48 working hours, and dependent on consultations with relevant departments when asked questions relating to Friday’s work stoppage.

Neither the Gauteng departments of Health nor Education did not respond about their contingency plans during the water crisis.

loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za

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