As frustrations rise among residents of Parktown, Melville, and surrounding suburbs, the DA has announced its intention to take the City of Johannesburg to court over its failure to provide essential water services.

This declaration comes as protests erupted on Wednesday, reflecting growing discontent among citizens grappling with severe water shortages exacerbated by a lack of infrastructure maintenance.

“We, as the DA in the City of Johannesburg, are going to take Joburg Water and the City of Johannesburg to court over their failure to implement the water turnaround strategy and recovery plan presented to the city over two years ago,” DA federal leader, Helen Zille, said on Wednesday.

Zille cited an infrastructure backlog, water tanker corruption, and other challenges that have led to water shortages, with dissatisfied city residents taking to the streets on Wednesday and days prior in places such as Midrand.

“In Joburg, there is such a big backlog for maintenance service, while in Cape Town, they have over R14 billion of their own funds and can look up to 2025 with new infrastructure. This is estimated at R200 billion, and if you have to go back to the maintenance that has not been done. That is the backlog, while the city has lost a high-paying rate per business, which is why the city is borrowing money at this high rate.”

On Wednesday, residents of Brixton, who have faced prolonged water challenges, accused Joburg Mayor Dada Morero of failing to prioritise them during a media briefing by the mayor, with one resident telling him that he has not taken a bath in days.

“It has been a year that we have not had water in this area for a long time. Water comes in the morning, and by 5pm, the water is gone. You can smell me; I have not had water for three to four days,” one resident told the mayor as tensions flared.

Meanwhile, the residents of Melville threatened to shut down the area after they had been without water for over two weeks.

Addressing members of the media, Morero revealed that to fix water challenges in the CBD, water pipe infrastructure needs between R3 and R4 billion to be fixed, adding that this and other municipal services, like electricity and road infrastructure, will push the capital expenditure from R8 to R10 billion.

“Just in the CBD alone, we are facing just over 150 kilometres of infrastructure, which requires an entire replacement. If we are to look at the cost, we are looking at least R3 to R4 billion,” he stated.

Morero further assured residents that the city is doing its best to implement a comprehensive strategy to deal with the current crisis through a multifaceted Water Demand Management programme, which he said involves coordinated efforts with various stakeholders.

“The programme includes detailed assessments of water usage patterns, targeted interventions in high-risk areas, and the deployment of cutting-edge technologies to monitor and optimise the entire supply system,” he stated.

Zille, who was in the company of Provincial Chairperson, Solly Msimanga, and Cillers Brink, called for honest communication from the government at local and national levels after the water crisis that has seen taps dry up in many Gauteng communities, while threatening that should the challenge persist, the party will take legal action.

Msimanga revealed that while the party supports calls for President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare the water challenges a national disaster, there has to be some form of financial accountability to ensure funds are not siphoned by corrupt officials.

“There has to be a way to make sure that when we declare a state of national disaster, we avoid the situation where vultures circle in as they did with the Covid-19 funds and other such declarations that we have seen,” he said.

siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za

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