When The Taps Run Dry

Lengolo Moletsane has his daily routine mastered. Over the ten years he and his family have been living in the Northern suburbs of Johannesburg, he’s been waking up at midnight to do some freelance work, before catching a little more sleep and then rising to help get his three school-going children ready for the day ahead. After a long day, Moletsane, who is a graphic designer, returns home. “If it is not my turn to cook, I often come back home to an amazing meal, then do some homework, drop off the other child at soccer, pick him up, and rest,” he tells OkayAfrica. In Moletsane’s home, just like in multiple homes across the city and country, water is a necessity whose scarcity can disrupt this harmonious routine.

Moletsane had been hearing of impending water disruptions that would result in what the mainstream South African media has termed “water shedding,” but hadn’t been directly impacted by an outage. His residence is in one of the suburbs that are largely unaffected by the water crisis in South Africa. This was until recently, when a ten-day stretch of the taps running dry in the Randburg area where he lives turned his life topsy-turvy. “Jiki jiki, there is not a drop of water coming out of my tap, meaning that morning flush would be the last,” he says.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

This is not the first time that a major metropolis has been affected. The city of Cape Town experienced a city-wide panic in 2018 that became known as “day zero,” and saw media from all over the world descend to get a scoop. The city subsequently experienced a bout of rainfalls which replenished supply points like Theewaterskloof and Wemmershoek.

Just like in 2018, when Capetonians living in suburban areas didn’t feel the crisis as much as those in lower-income areas did, the situation in Johannesburg is being repeated as some feel it more than others. People have been spotted damaging infrastructure in order to obtain water in the suburb of Yeoville. Meanwhile, a five-minute drive downhill to suburbs like Killarney and Rosebank, which are arguably more affluent, people go about their lives almost undisturbed. It’s a duality that repeats itself across the country, one of the most unequal in the world.

What’s [Been] Happening, What’s [Been] Going On?

Daily Maverick reported that Johannesburg’s mayor, Kabelo Kwamanda, called a “crisis meeting,” after many had been left without water for two weeks, to update citizens about what the city’s plans were to combat the situation.

With the municipality not providing alternative solutions — like water tankers — people have had to preserve the little water they are able to source, sometimes going without showering or washing dishes.

While water tanks do get dispatched to strategic points around the city, the number of buckets per person is often limited. This is critical because it results in a situation where people’s health is impacted and doesn’t bode well for a country whose public health system has also been reported to be overstretched.

Water: A Human Right

Access to clean water and adequate sanitation is number six on the list of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. But the demand for it is increasing with growing populations and urbanization. Scarcity is a recurring theme in the public protests that plague the outer edges of the metropolis. In the city of Tshwane, townships like Mabopane and Ga-Rankuwa have been complaining about water shortages for years. But this isn’t the stuff that gets front-page placement in the media, at least not on the ongoing basis that they deserve.

Another worrying trend, a carry-over from the load shedding crisis, is the non-uniform information that gets communicated. This week, Johannesburg Water blamed power outages that affected water pumps for the prolonged outages that were experienced by suburbs like Blairgowrie and Linden, which is a deviation from the low water levels narrative.

“[The information is] confusing, and it can be contradictory. These are proper media houses, and they’re quoting spokespeople or experts, but everyone is telling a different story,” says Mvelase Peppetta, who lives in the suburb of Lonehill.

Moletsane’s sources, on the other hand, were unreliable reports on social media, which made him doubt the validity of the claims. It’s now apparent that periodic maintenance on water systems was not performed, and that the effects are worsening. There are concerns there will be a full-blown water catastrophe if the situation is not addressed head-on.

Peppetta says that the discovery is “concerning,” but cautions against something we might be missing in terms of the bigger issue at play. The system was perfect pre-1994, but only for a small percentage of the population. “Government comes into power, and it needs to supply all the other areas that did not have water.”

More people have access to clean drinking water now, but that puts pressure on both infrastructure and water levels in key supply points like the Vaal river. Still, both Moletsane and Peppetta are irritated and disappointed by the current situation. “As much as the city did its best, constantly notifying those affected and though they provided water tanks on trucks to some suburbs, I feel or wish the matter would have been sorted out [quicker],” says Moletsane.

Last weekend, officials from Johannesburg and Pretoria were urged by water management authorities in the Gauteng Province to reduce water consumption, failure of which may lead to collapse of the water system — a situation where reservoir levels drop below 10 percent capacity, necessitating a shutdown for replenishment. Rand Water, which supplies other municipalities in the province, has also pleaded with residents to reduce consumption. Its reservoirs have dropped to 30 percent capacity, from 70 percent in December, leaving residents wondering when things would return to normal.

Lying at the core of these crises is the systematic neglect of public infrastructure. The collapse manifesting in very ugly ways that inconvenience large swathes of the population reflects a leadership very much out of tune with its people. This needs to change, or else disaster looms for one of the African continent’s major economic players.