Joint statement by the Ministry of Water and Sanitation, Gauteng Office of the Premier, City of Johannesburg and Rand Water on water challenges in Johannesburg
Residents of Johannesburg have been experiencing increasingly frequent interruptions to their daily water supply. This causes great hardship for residents and is an impediment to economic growth in the City.
On Sunday, 10 November 2024, the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Ms Pemmy Majodina, convened an urgent meeting to address the challenges of water in the City of Johannesburg. The meeting was attended by the Gauteng Premier, Mr Panyaza Lesufi, the Deputy Ministers of Water and Sanitation, Mr David Mahlobo and Mr Sello Seitlholo, the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs in Gauteng MEC, Mr Jacob Mamabolo, the Executive Mayor of Johannesburg, Mr Dada Morero and the leadership of Rand Water.
The meeting reached unanimous agreement on the causes of the water supply interruptions and what needs to be done to restore a stable water supply to the residents of Johannesburg.
Johannesburg Water, which is an entity of the City, buys treated water from Rand Water and supplies it to the residents of the City. Rand Water in turn buys raw, untreated water from the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS). Rand Water abstracts raw water from the Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS), which consists of 19 interconnected dams, including major dams such as the Vaal Dam, the Sterkfontein Dam, and the Katse and Mohale Dams in Lesotho.
Rand Water treats the raw water so that it meets drinking water quality standards, stores it in bulk storage reservoirs, and pumps it into the municipality’s reservoirs. From the municipal storage reservoirs, the water either flows under the force of gravity or is pumped through various distribution pipelines to households and industries across the city.
To ensure a continuous reliable supply of water to users even in times of drought, DWS sets a limit on the amount of raw water that Rand Water is allowed to abstract annually from the Integrated Vaal River System. The limit is currently 1802 million cubic metres of water per annum.
The demand for water in Johannesburg has grown and continues to grow as a result of economic growth and population growth. DWS anticipated this growth in demand and put in place plans to address it as far back as the 1980’s, through the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), which supplies additional water into the IVRS from the Katse and Mohale dams built in the mountains in Lesotho.
The first phase of the LHWP was completed in 2003 and delivers 780 million cubic metres of water into the IVRS per year. Construction of the second phase of LHWP, to deliver a further 490 million cubic metres of water per annum into the IVRS from the new Polihali Dam in Lesotho, commenced in late 2022 and is due to be completed by 2028.
In anticipation of the completion of the second phase of the LHWP in 2028, Rand Water is implementing a R35 billion five-year rolling capital works programme, which includes increasing both storage capacity and water treatment capacity. To date, Rand Water has increased the capacity of its Zuikerbosch Water Treatment Plant by 150 million litres per day, at a cost of R3.5 billion. Rand Water is planning to implement further upgrades of the Zuikerbosch Water Treatment Plant, to increase its capacity by a further 450 million litres per day by 2028.
The amount of water that Rand Water can abstract from the system is not being affected by the current closure of the Lesotho Highlands Tunnel for maintenance. The Vaal Dam is currently approximately 33% full. If and when its level drops to 18%, water will be released from other dams in the system, including the Sterkfontein Dam, to increase the amount of water in the Vaal Dam.
Rand Water is already abstracting water from the IVRS at the limit set by DWS, and will not be able to abstract any more water until the second phase of LHWP starts providing additional water into the IVRS from 2028. Rand Water is therefore not able to supply any more water to municipalities in Gauteng than it is currently supplying.
The main underlying cause of the water supply disruptions in Johannesburg is therefore that the peak demand for water is close to, and occasionally exceeds, the available supply from Rand Water. The demand-supply relationship for treated water in Johannesburg is very tight and the system is vulnerable to disturbances caused by electro-mechanical breakdowns or spikes in demand caused by heatwaves.
In addition to the completion of the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Project, the meeting agreed that the City of Johannesburg must reduce the leaks in its water distribution system and complete its current projects to construct more reservoirs and pumping stations to make its water distribution system more resilient to electro-mechanical breakdowns or spikes in demand.
The 2023 No Drop report issued by DWS found that water losses in Johannesburg were 35%, compared to the international norm of 15%. Reducing water losses requires a multi-pronged approach by the City, including amongst others, improving billing and revenue collection to increase the funds available for maintenance and to provide better incentives for water to be used efficiently, improving pressure management, replacing ageing pipes which burst frequently, and installing water meters or replacing dysfunctional bulk and customer water meters so that water flows can be measured accurately to determine the location of the losses.
Johannesburg Water presented the measures which it is implementing, which include:
a) Throttling of water supply between 9 pm and 4 am, to enable reservoir levels to recover overnight. The City intends to implement this continuously from 14 November until the system has fully recovered.
b) Procurement of a panel of contractors for emergency repairs of large diameter pipe water leaks as well as increasing the number of teams on standby during the week to attend to leaks and burst pipes.
c) Increasing the number of repair and maintenance teams on duty during the weekend with the aim of improving leak repair response times from 48 hours to 24 hours.
d) Increasing the number of trucks available to its leak repair and maintenance teams.
e) Implementing cut-offs of illegal connections in key informal settlements.
f) Implementing advanced pressure management systems, including the installation of 45 Smart Pressure Controllers (pressure reducing valves), in addition to the 15 which have been refurbished and retrofitted to date. This is aimed at reducing water losses at night when demand is low, which will substantially reduce water losses.
g) Accelerating leak detection (to date, 12 100km water pipelines have been surveyed and 2 396 burst pipes, 6 727 leaking meters, 442 leaking valves and 259 leaking hydrants were identified and repaired.) This intervention has provided an estimated water demand reduction of 9 457 million litres per annum.
h) Working with National Treasury to put in place a Public Private Partnership for the reduction of non-revenue water, to mobilize private sector funding and expertise for reducing non-revenue water.
The meeting noted and strongly supported the approval by the Johannesburg City Council of a turnaround strategy for Joburg Water. The turnaround strategy includes ring-fencing of revenues from the sale of water for the water function, as well as creating single-point accountability for the water function in the City. The intention is to give Joburg Water control over all the functions related to managing water supply in the City, so that it can be held accountable.
Even after the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Project comes on stream, Gauteng’s long-term water consumption will need to be carefully managed, because there are limits to which further phases of LHWP or other water transfer projects can continue to provide additional water to Gauteng at an affordable cost.
The 2023 No Drop report found that the average consumption of water in Gauteng is 279 litres per person per day. This is 60% above the world average of 173 litres per person per day, which is an anomaly given that South Africa is a water-scarce country with limited sustainable water resources and amongst the top 30 driest countries globally.
To address this, DWS, Rand Water, the provincial government and all the municipalities in Gauteng are working together with civil society leaders, business leaders and experts to implement a large-scale communications and awareness campaign regarding the need to use water more sparingly. The meeting noted that an independent body called the Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng has been established to manage this campaign and that, as a first step, a dashboard has been created on the DWS website to provide the public with detailed information on the status of water supply in Gauteng.
The political leadership in the three spheres of government are confident that these measures will be implemented with the necessary urgency. It was agreed that similar meetings will be held every Sunday to monitor progress.
Media Enquiries please contact the following officials:
Department of Water and Sanitation
Cornelius Monama 0832710808/ monamac@dws.gov.zaMinisterial Spokesperson
Wisane Mavasa 060 561 8935/ mavasaw@dws.gov.za Departmental Spokesperson
Office of the Premier
Vuyo Mhaga, Gauteng Spokesperson-vuyo.mhaga@gauteng.gov.za
Office of the Executive Mayor
Chris Vondo, Director Communications +27 (79) 851-9908
Johannesburg Water:
Nondumiso Mabuza: 060 555 3156 nondumiso.mabuza@jwater.co.za
Rand Water:
Makenosi Maroo (Spokesperson): 072 545 5041/ mmaroo@randwater.co.za
Justice Mohale (Media Relations Manager): 083 417 6999/ jmohale@randwater.co.za
