How Joburg residents have been juggling life without water

It has been a life of taking showers at friends and relatives and buying bottled water for some residents in parts of the Johannesburg suburbs of Northcliff, Emmarentia and Greymont hit by water outages.

Shanon Zoghby from Greymont said for the past few weeks their lives have been turned upside down when they suddenly had no water, with no prior warning.

“It was such a shock, we woke up one day and there was no water from our taps. This went on for three days and we had to make a plan and see how to get on with our lives without water from our taps. There were no water tankers provided. We had to devise our own plans to make sure we get by.”

She took showers at friends’ houses in those three days and bought bottled water for drinking and cooking. She tried to avoid using the toilet at her house as she had no water for flushing. 

Northcliff resident Emma du Plessis said she is also taking showers at friends’ houses, but is cautious as she didn't want to be a burden. 

“I try to make sure I don’t go to the same friend every day. I skip a day or two before going back to them because I don’t want to be a burden to them.”

Du Plessis said the issue of irregular water supply was nothing new in their area and had little to do with the water-shedding and the current notice issued by Rand Water about throttling its supply to municipalities due to high usage. 

“My house is on a hill, so we are used to having water cuts. Any slight issue with water, we know it’s definitely going to affect us.”

Business owner Somayya Motala said she was fed up with the water cuts, which had become part of their daily life in Emmarentia.

“For the past five or six weeks, we’ve been experiencing water cuts every second day, with no warning or notice. We are also not provided with tankers,” she said.

Motala owns two restaurants and said she is fortunate to have a borehole at her house which is just a few streets away from her restaurants. When there is no water, she fetches water in buckets from her house for use in the restaurants.

“Our restaurants rely heavily on water and can’t do without it. We have to wash dishes, staff have to frequently wash their hands and we need water to make some of the items we serve, like coffee.”

She was also furious that Johannesburg Water doesn't provide residents with water tankers during outages. 

“The message we received from our residents' association was that Johannesburg Water doesn't have sufficient tankers to assist all communities.”

Motala said the water cuts not only affected the day-to-day running of the businesses but also their sales.

“People drive out of the area when there is no water because they want to be away from the problematic situation, so it means we have fewer customers.”

Motala said the current challenges around water and electricity have reached crisis level.

“If you thought the past two years of Covid-19 were bad for our businesses, then you are wrong. The ongoing power and water cuts are the real crisis.”

Authorities should be honest about what the problem is, especially with water cuts.

“These water cuts make no sense to me. The Vaal Dam is sitting at 95% capacity. Why now do we have these issues? I really hope politicians are not playing games with us and trying to sabotage each other at the expense of residents,” Motala said.

Ward councillor Nicole Jonker, whose ward covers parts of Emmarentia and Northcliff, told TimesLIVE she was aware of the frustrations of residents, but there was little she could do to resolve them. 

“I'm trying my best, but some of the things are beyond my control and I also struggle with getting the right answers from Johannesburg Water.”

DA MPL Nico de Jager said 43% of water in Johannesburg is lost because of technical issues such as burst pipes and leaks and non-technical issues such as unmetered homes or bypassed meters.

“These need to be addressed urgently and cannot be ignored,” de Jager said.

On average, Gauteng residents use 300+ litres of water per day against a world norm of 173 litres, which he said is calculated by the number of people divided by demand.

“The daily allocation for Joburg is about 1.6 megalitres of water, an amount which we are exceeding by more than 200 megalitres per day and it increases during spring when it is hot and dry. So irrespective of how full the dams are, the pumping capacity remains constant and there has been no significant work done to increase the 1.6 megalitres of water,” de Jager said. 

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