The Democratic Alliance (DA) has reason to believe that both Johannesburg Water and the City’s Environmental & Infrastructure Services Department have tried to hide the fact that they failed to secure national water-infrastructure grants. Most worryingly, we believe that they failed to disclose whether such applications were made at all.
English soundbite by Cllr Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku
This failure directly impacts the City’s ability to upgrade water infrastructure, keeping taps dry, and the water tanker mafia well-funded.
The DA has therefore formally written to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Velinkosini Hlabisa; the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Pemmy Majodina; and the Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, requesting an urgent and coordinated national investigation into the City of Johannesburg’s water-infrastructure funding failures and the City’s alarming escalation in water-tanker usage since 2023.
Despite requests through Section 79 oversight committees, officials have not provided clarity on:
- Whether applications for national water-infrastructure grants were submitted in detail;
- The outcomes of any such applications;
- How much the City has spent on water tankers since 2023; and
- Why reliance on water tankers continues to grow even as water outages worsen across the metro.
These failures are deeply concerning and point to a collapse in the City’s strategic planning and governance relating to water security. Instead of demonstrating urgency in securing national infrastructure funding, the City has approved additional borrowing, further worsening its already fragile financial position.
Water tanker dependence has grown to unprecedented levels since 2023, with many communities experiencing prolonged and repeated water outages.
The DA believes that the failure of the City to maintain and protect its water infrastructure, while also failing to use available grants as an option to secure water infrastructure could also expose the City to contravention of section 27(1)b and 27(2) of the Constitution.
We call on National Treasury, CoGTA, and the Department of Water and Sanitation to urgently intervene and determine what went wrong, and what must be done to fix it.
The DA will continue to champion transparency, accountability and service delivery.