As 2025 draws to a close, Johannesburg residents are left counting the true cost of a water infrastructure crisis that the city has neither planned for nor been honest about. While officials speak in technical language about maintenance and “water interruptions”, the reality for households, businesses and investors is far more severe: prolonged outages, declining property values, public health risks and a deep erosion of trust in municipal governance.
At the centre of this crisis is a failure of leadership and transparency. The City of Johannesburg has increasingly defaulted to water tankers — not as a temporary emergency measure, but as a routine response to infrastructure collapse. Tankers are expensive, inefficient and unequal in their reach, yet the city has failed to explain why this approach is preferred over decisive investment in long-term water security.
Even more troubling is the city’s financial decision-making. Instead of aggressively pursuing ring-fenced, water-specific infrastructure grants from the national government, Johannesburg has opted to apply for loans for vaguely defined “infrastructure projects”. That choice saddles future ratepayers with debt while offering no guarantee of improved service delivery. Residents are left paying more for less, without clarity on what alternatives were considered or rejected.
The economic consequences are already visible. Businesses dependent on reliable water supply are losing income daily. Investors quietly redirect capital elsewhere. Homeowners watch property values stagnate or decline as neighbourhoods become known for chronic service failures. Water insecurity is no longer an inconvenience; it is a material risk to Johannesburg’s economic competitiveness.
The growing reliance on water tankers also raises serious governance concerns. In recent years the Auditor-General has repeatedly flagged weaknesses in procurement processes, contract management and consequence management within the city and its entities. Against this backdrop, escalating expenditure on tanker services, with limited public reporting on costs, routes or performance, should alarm every resident.
Answers now, please
Communities are entitled to ask difficult questions. Why has emergency expenditure become permanent policy? Why is the city unable to provide a transparent account of whether it applied for available water infrastructure grants, what the outcomes were and why grant funding wasn’t prioritised over borrowing? Silence on these issues only deepens public distrust.
The human cost of this failure is profound. Elderly residents, people with chronic illnesses, clinics, schools and families with young children bear the brunt of prolonged outages. Daily routines are disrupted, dignity is compromised and frustration escalates into anger. When basic services fail, social cohesion weakens and local tensions intensify.
Ratepayers deserve to know which officials are responsible for delays and what consequences follow failure. Without this information, oversight is impossible and corruption risks multiply. Johannesburg cannot rebuild confidence while governing in the dark.
What makes this crisis particularly unforgivable is that it was entirely foreseeable. Years of deferred maintenance, underspending on capital budgets and a lack of accountability have hollowed out Johannesburg’s water infrastructure. Instead of confronting these realities, political leadership has too often been absent or reactive, responding only when public pressure becomes unavoidable.
The recent planned maintenance by Rand Water has exposed these decades-old failures.
Transparency is not optional in a constitutional democracy. Ratepayers deserve to know which officials are responsible for delays and what consequences follow failure. Without this information, oversight is impossible and corruption risks multiply. Johannesburg cannot rebuild confidence while governing in the dark.
Clear reporting, independent audits and political accountability are prerequisites for recovery, not obstacles to it. This approach must be driven from the executive level, not outsourced to consultants or deferred to future administrations, because every delay compounds the social and economic damage already being felt across the city.
Johannesburg does not need more explanations or short-term fixes. It needs transparent leadership, full disclosure of funding decisions and a credible, funded plan to rehabilitate water infrastructure using every appropriate grant mechanism available. Water tankers cannot substitute for pipes, pumps and reservoirs.
Water is not a luxury or a line item to be managed through crisis procurement. It is a basic human right and the foundation of economic survival. If Johannesburg continues down its current path, the cost will be measured not only in rands and litres, but in lost opportunity, declining confidence and a city steadily failing the people who sustain it.
Kayser-Echeozonjoku is the DA caucus leader for the City of Johannesburg
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