By Staff Reporter
The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) has accused the City of Johannesburg of political failure, saying the city’s water shortages stem from mismanagement rather than a lack of supply.
MKP spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela made the remarks after an oversight visit to the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, where the delegation confirmed the system was operating at full capacity.
“Contrary to the excuses peddled by municipal officials, water is flowing at 20 000 litres per second via the Vaal River system into Gauteng. The infrastructure is maintained, and the supply is stable,” Ndhlela said, adding that party members on Parliament’s Water and Sanitation Committee had witnessed the evidence firsthand.
He argued that Johannesburg’s water crisis is not caused by scarcity but by “political negligence.”
“Leaks run for years without repair, reservoirs are left to plunge, and R4-billion was quietly shifted away from Johannesburg Water while residents queue at tankers. This is purely political failure,” he said.
Earlier this month, the MKP called for a full overhaul of the city’s entities and requested National Treasury to investigate Johannesburg’s water tanker contracts.
The party has also demanded that Joburg mayor Dada Morero dissolve what it calls a “cadre-filled board” at Joburg Water and appoint qualified engineers to lead the entity.
Ndhlela went further, blaming both the City and the DA-led Government of National Unity (GNU) for what he called “incompetence and dereliction of duty.”
“This crisis is symptomatic of a broader national decay under the GNU – a cobbled-together coalition of self-serving elites who lack the will and capacity to govern,” he said.
According to the MKP, the GNU has proven “absent, unaccountable, and fundamentally illegitimate,” while President Cyril Ramaphosa is allegedly using Johannesburg as a bargaining chip to regain political ground.
“Securing control of the City, with DA support and Helen Zille as their mayoral candidate, is a desperate attempt to expand influence rather than serve the people,” Ndhlela said.
The MKP has demanded immediate accountability for what it terms an “engineered crisis and gross failure to provide a constitutionally enshrined human right.”
“Our people are not asking for favours; they are demanding what is rightfully owed to them. As the 2026 local government elections draw near, South Africans must reject a political order that cannot even deliver water while the taps of corruption remain wide open,” Ndhlela said.
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