Inside Metros Reporter
Joburg residents are staging three protests this week over prolonged water outages, as mounting frustration over unreliable supplies spreads across Gauteng ahead of next week’s local government elections.
The three separately organised demonstrations will take place in Melville, Kensington and Parktown West, with local residents leading the Melville and Parktown West protests and the Water Crisis Committee organising Thursday’s demonstration in Kensington.
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All three are demanding reliable water supplies, clear recovery plans and accountability from municipal officials following repeated disruptions that have left some households without water for days or weeks.
The first protest is scheduled for Wednesday, 28 October, between 6am and 8am at the corner of Main Road and Fourth Avenue in Melville.
On Thursday, the Water Crisis Committee will organise a demonstration at the corner of Queen Street and Albertina Sisulu Road, with residents from Kensington, Observatory, Bezuidenhout Valley and surrounding neighbourhoods expected to participate.
The protest, scheduled from 5pm to 7pm, will extend along Albertina Sisulu Road and Langermann Drive. Organisers have called for peaceful action without political party branding.
A third protest will take place on Friday, 30 October, along Jan Smuts Avenue between Loch Avenue and Seymour Road in Parktown West, from 7am to 9am.
Under the slogan “Weeks Dry. ZERO Answers”, residents are demanding accountability and a recovery plan to restore reliable municipal water supplies.
The demonstrations follow months of recurring water disruptions across Johannesburg, including in areas served by the troubled Commando water supply system, which has struggled with low reservoir levels and unreliable distribution. Residents of Melville and surrounding suburbs have previously protested over prolonged outages.
The growing public anger comes just days before South Africans vote in the 4 November local government elections, with water provision becoming an increasingly contentious issue for municipal administrations.
Meanwhile, water advocacy group WaterCAN has demanded urgent answers from Lesedi Local Municipality, Rand Water and the National Water Crisis Committee, known as Watercom, over persistent shortages affecting communities including Rensburg, Ratanda and Heidelberg.
In an open letter, WaterCAN executive director Dr Ferrial Adam questioned whether Rand Water had again restricted bulk supplies to Lesedi following a 20% reduction imposed in June because of unpaid municipal debt. The restriction was suspended in July following government intervention.
“Earlier this month WaterCAN received reports that more than 800 homes in Rensburg were without water for several days. But Rensburg was not experiencing these problems in isolation,” Adam wrote.
The organisation also cited a municipal notice issued on 12 October indicating that three of Lesedi’s four reservoirs were at approximately 10% capacity.
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“This is a serious water-supply emergency,” Adam said in the letter.
“It also raises an unavoidable question: has Rand Water again reduced, restricted or throttled the volume or pressure of bulk water supplied to Lesedi?”
WaterCAN has demanded details of Lesedi’s outstanding debt, actual bulk-water volumes and pressures, and the implementation of a September agreement intended to stabilise supply.
Adam said the continued lack of transparency was deeply concerning, particularly as residents struggled to understand why their water supply remained unreliable.
“Publishing a notice informing residents that reservoirs are low or that an outage has occurred may alert communities to an immediate problem. It does not answer the more important questions of why it is happening, where the failure lies, who is responsible and what is being done to prevent it from recurring.”
