Illegal connection and old infrastructure led to Joburg’s water woes

The Johannesburg Water officials say several challenges in the water system have led to water cuts in some areas and affected pressure in others.

They say they are seeking to work on improving the provision of water.

The challenges include illegal connections and ageing infrastructure.

The water cuts have sparked widespread protests from communities that have been without water for several days.

The water utility’s Operations Manager Logan Munsamy earlier briefed the media on what he called aggressive interventions in dealing with supply challenges.

He says, “In terms of our interventions, we’ve stepped up our game, there’s aggressive interventions that we have already started in place. Some of the initiatives are the permanent reduction of water supply to prepaid that’s already in place. We do that typically by throttling and closing of certain high-demand areas, within that area.”

“There are also scheduled water restrictions, which we have started to implement as of the 8th of November 2024 which we have communicated quite extensively, in terms of reducing the demand. In terms of our repairs and maintenance, we have a strategy that we implemented, to improve our turnaround times from 48 hours to 24- hours,” adds Munsamy.

Joburg Water briefs media on the water situation: