OPINION | Mismanagement is the root cause of water crisis

The taps are running dry in Johannesburg and residents deserve to know why. Despite recent abundant rainfall, water throttling continues across the city. The explanation we’re being fed is deliberately misleading and obscures the real culprits behind this man-made crisis.

As much as Gauteng is water-scarce, we don’t have a water shortage. What we have is a management crisis of epic proportions. The issue stems from extracting more water than is legally permitted under our current water licence.

This is not about conservation — it is about avoiding legal consequences for systemic failures at multiple levels of the government. To understand the problem, you need to know the journey of our. We are served by two major dams — Sterkfontein (at 98% capacity) and Katse from Lesotho's Highlands Water Scheme.

The Vaal Dam functions primarily as a supply dam, not storage. Recent good rainfall has filled these resources adequately. From there, Rand Water, a national entity, extracts, purifies and delivers water to municipalities, including Johannesburg. Finally, Joburg Water distributes water to residents.

The Lesotho Highlands Phase 2 project should have been completed three years ago but is only now beginning construction — eight years behind schedule.

They are also enforcing water limits based on flawed census data while demanding dramatic consumption reductions: from 1,800-megalitres to 1,550 by month-end, and down to 1,350 by September.

Caught between legal pressures and municipal waste, Rand Water has failed to install adequate backup power facilities to maintain consistent supply during outages. The entity loses nearly half (46.8%) of our water through leaks or not paid for but consumed.

This is corporate malpractice masquerading as public service. While they claim 20% goes to free basic water, faulty billing and illegal connections, that still leaves 26% in technical losses — meaning 468-million litres wasted daily through purely technical faults. 

The global standard for acceptable technical losses is 18%. Reaching this benchmark would save 144-million litres a day. Add improved collections and removal of illegal connections and we could save a substantial amount of water; together bringing consumption well below the mandated 1,550-megalitres.

Instead of addressing these fixable problems, Joburg Water has to run skeleton crews on weekends, leaving burst pipes unattended for days. Their inexperienced, politically appointed board includes a musician with no relevant technical qualifications. Is it any wonder they choose to throttle supply to residents rather than fix their broken system?

We need a political administration that will allow management to manage the entity and instil pride and accountability, free from political interference. A world-class city deserves 24/7 response teams for water emergencies.

Happy customers who receive reliable service are more likely to pay their bills, creating a virtuous cycle. In informal settlements with deemed consumption, we should install bulk meters to measure actual usage and then engage residents on whether to implement area-wide throttling or individual meters. This approach would quickly bring consumption to maintainable levels with minimal disruption.

The water crisis in Johannesburg is not about drought or climate change. It is about leadership failure and mismanagement. The solution is achievable and reasonable, but it requires political will to prioritise residents' wellbeing over protecting incompetent bureaucrats.

In 2026, voters will have the chance to demand better. Until then, remember that your dry taps are not caused by water scarcity but by governance drought.

• Bittkau is DA Johannesburg spokesperson for water

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