Joburg’s R15 billion water disaster

The City of Johannesburg needs between R10 billion and R15 billion just to halt the current water shortages plaguing the metro, with billions more needed to ensure it can supply its growing population. 

Africa’s richest city has come under increasing financial pressure in recent years as mismanagement, corruption, and a lack of maintenance impact service delivery and revenue collection. 

One of the most pressing challenges is the city’s repeated and prolonged water shortages, impacting businesses and livelihoods.  

There has been no clear plan to tackle this problem, with money allocated towards water infrastructure often used for other purposes within the municipality. 

During this period, the city has had nine mayors in eight years, resulting in a lack of direction or tangible progress made in addressing some of Joburg’s biggest challenges. 

The latest in this long line is Dada Morero, who is tasked with halting the city’s collapse and has promised no drastic improvements in the next two years. 

Morero’s first task is to get financing to enable the city to tackle its glaring infrastructure challenges. 

Bloomberg reported that the mayor is locked in negotiations with Standard Bank and the World Bank, among others. 

Beyond debt financing, the city is considering other ways of raising money, including ring-fencing a portion of the revenue collected for an infrastructure fund that will be used to repair power and water equipment. 

The city needs around R221 billion to catch up on maintenance and overdue infrastructure upgrades. 

“We are looking at how we can do some of these things off the balance sheet by raising money from private funders or anyone in the market who can help us to close that gap,” he told Bloomberg.

“Our projections are that we would need between R10 billion and R15 billion just to neutralise or maintain the water infrastructure.”

This estimate does not include the desperate need for the city to increase the capacity of its infrastructure to supply a growing population. 

Including planned expansions, the bill for water infrastructure alone would rise to R25 billion. 

South Africa’s main economic hub has been dealing with extended water outages over the past few months caused by major maintenance work by Rand Water.

This maintenance is overdue, as Johannesburg’s rapid population growth over the past ten years has put immense pressure on its infrastructure, which struggles to keep up with the rising demand for essential services.

The city has sufficient bulk water supply, but the real challenge is the delivery to residents due to ageing and failing infrastructure.

It is estimated that leaks cause between 45% and 50% of the water supplied by Rand Water in Gauteng to be lost before it reaches the end user.

Water scientist Dr Anthony Turton noted that the water shortages in certain parts of Gauteng are due to mismanagement despite the dams being adequately full.

“With proper water management, we could support both economic and population growth. The problem isn’t a lack of water—it’s a failure in institutional management,” Turton explained.

“Johannesburg Water is a clear example of local-level government failure,” he added.

CEO of the South African Chamber, Benoit Le Roy, agreed with Turton that the problem is inadequate maintenance and investment from the water distributors and municipalities. 

“We need to fix the leaking buckets. It will cost about R25 billion to fix Johannesburg’s water infrastructure, and you cannot do it overnight,” Le Roy said. 

He estimated that if work began now to upgrade and develop Johannesburg’s water infrastructure, it would take a year to 18 months for residents to feel the effect. 

“We need to move. That is the big thing. We are talking a lot and raising awareness, but we are not moving.”

Turton said that water shortages in Gauteng threaten the country’s economy and risk resulting in social unrest. 

This will result in the province reaching a ‘threshold of concern’ which, once crossed, will put the system at serious risk of collapse, which is unprecedented. 

“Of course, when water supply is disrupted, businesses cannot operate. It means that there will also be an impact on the workforce,” he said. 

“You must appreciate that water is the foundation of your national economy. It is the foundation of social stability.”

“Once your water infrastructure starts collapsing, you start to see things like social instability, the flight of capital out of the country, businesses collapsing, and the loss of jobs.”