On Tuesday, Sowetan ran a story with the headline “Soweto residents hit hard by weeklong water outage”. The story details how some residents in SA’s biggest township have been without water for more than a week — a situation that has affected their lives and livelihood generation.
A business, resulting in loss of income. Learning has also been affected, with parents detailing how schools have been forced to turn back learners.
This is not the most distressing part of the story. What is even more horrific is that Joburg Water has no idea what the cause of the problem is. So, as things stand, Soweto residents must continue to use water tankers, some situated far from their households, until the municipality figures out why there’s no water coming out of their taps.
It is a cruel irony that this situation is unfolding during Human Rights Month, the 2025 theme for which is: “Deepening a culture of social justice and human rights.” Water is a fundamental human right – one that is enshrined in the constitution of our country. The UN General Assembly also explicitly recognised the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation in 2010, and the SA Human Rights Council reaffirmed this recognition.
In 2019, the commission, in its report on the water security crisis in Hammanskraal, stated unambiguously that the lack of clean and drinkable water in the township was an ongoing violation of residents’ human rights. The report also said the failure of the City of Tshwane to manage and maintain wastewater treatment works was the primary reason for the problems of water insecurity in Hammanskraal.
And make no mistake, what is happening in Johannesburg is a crisis.
It has become clear that the City of Johannesburg is struggling to resolve the deepening water crisis in the city. It is time for the municipality to implement a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). In the context of water infrastructure, an SPV is a legal entity, often a subsidiary, created to manage and finance specific water projects, such as revitalising water and sanitation services, by ring-fencing assets and liabilities.
It is a water utility that will be responsible for implementing, managing and carrying out the maintenance of water and sanitation service systems to ensure sustainable basic service delivery to residents, businesses and industries. A SPV has been launched in the embattled Emfuleni local municipality to help manage and finance water infrastructure maintenance. This intervention will allow private sector expertise and funding to be brought in to stabilise and improve water supply networks in the municipality.
The City of Johannesburg must engage with Rand Water to facilitate this SPV. The bulk water utility is professionalised and has the skills and expertise to assist in this endeavour. It proved its ability to respond to and avert crises during the Covid-19 pandemic when water outages could’ve worsened an already devastated healthcare system.
And make no mistake, what is happening in Johannesburg is a crisis. It’s a health crisis waiting to happen because a collapse of water and sanitation infrastructure will result in cholera and other outbreaks. It’s also a potential gender-based violence crisis waiting to happen because with water tankers being placed far from households, women must walk long distances to collect water, at times needing to navigate unsafe spaces such as open velds.
In a country where extortion is rampant, the crisis could also result in the rise of sextortion – where women are coerced into sex to access water in cases where extortionists demand pay for the use of public services. This kind of extortion is already happening in our country, as the Water Integrity Network has highlighted.
While it may be a temporary intervention, an SPV is the only tangible solution to stabilise the situation in Johannesburg. The alternative is unthinkable.
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