{"id":20862,"date":"2026-02-11T15:02:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=20862"},"modified":"2026-02-11T15:02:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:02:29","slug":"infrastructure-failure-pushes-joburg-towards-day-zero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=20862","title":{"rendered":"Infrastructure failure pushes Joburg towards day zero"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"textFreeArticle\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1644935?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS:<\/strong> Johannesburg\u2019s water system is under growing and severe strain, residents in many suburbs now enduring prolonged outages and infrastructure failure.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also a bitter dispute now over bonus payments at Johannesburg Water. That is slowing repairs, even as civil society groups warned that the city is living in some kind of day zero scenario.<\/p>\n<p>Experts from organisations like WaterCAN say poor communication, ageing systems and management dysfunction are deepening public distrust and prolonging the water (outages).<\/p>\n<p>Listen\/read:<br \/>JHB Day Zero: Who\u2019s enforcing restrictions? [2024]<br \/>Midrand residents protest massive water outage<br \/>Joburg protesters call for end to water crisis<\/p>\n<p>This is a very important and disturbing issue. Let\u2019s get into more detail with Dr Ferrial Adam, who is executive director of WaterCAN. Dr Adam, a very warm welcome. You have been attending a briefing today from the mayor of Johannesburg (Dada Morero), have you learned anything new?<\/p>\n<p><strong>FERRIAL ADAM: <\/strong>Good day, Jeremy. Actually, not much. I think some of the things he\u2019s been saying, he\u2019s been saying often, and we\u2019ve heard it before.<\/p>\n<p>What was quite alarming for me is that there\u2019s this sense that things are okay. There are a few areas that don\u2019t have water, but generally things are okay, and we are working on the issues where there are problems.<\/p>\n<p>I asked the question, how can you say that when there are areas like Melville, Emmarentia and Kensington, some of these areas have not had water for about 22 days?<\/p>\n<p>Listen\/read:<br \/>Johannesburg mayor touts new strategy as water crisis grips city<br \/>Zille vows to put business at the centre of Joburg revival<br \/>Mayor asked to explain R24.4bn of wasted Johannesburg funds<\/p>\n<p>That clearly is a day zero situation, because that\u2019s one of the things he also said, is that we don\u2019t have a day zero. Then I said that and then he said that\u2019s true, those people who don\u2019t have water are experiencing a day zero. So that was a win for us because he\u2019s acknowledged that.<\/p>\n<p>Then he talked about R500 million that they\u2019re going to get for reservoirs. This is old news. There\u2019s nothing new that\u2019s coming in this briefing.<\/p>\n<div class=\"visible-sm-block visible-xs-block m1010\">\n<div class=\"ad-container-wrapper\">\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>Is that really a win though? We are effectively living under day zero conditions. If so, surely the city at this point should be declaring a crisis formally? Or do you think that we\u2019re not there yet?<\/p>\n<p><strong>FERRIAL ADAM: <\/strong>I think that\u2019s exactly where we\u2019re moving with this whole idea of this is a day zero and we\u2019re living it. There needs to be a national disaster declared in the City of Joburg, and it\u2019s not a climate national disaster, it\u2019s an infrastructural disaster.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We cannot go through another year of having large parts of Joburg just without water and very poor communication, so that we have people just accepting there\u2019s no water.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Day zero has become a lived reality.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>What\u2019s the worst-case scenario that you\u2019re looking at over the next 12 to 18 months then, if either nothing changes or there\u2019s just simply incremental attention paid to the problem?<\/p>\n<p><strong>FERRIAL ADAM: <\/strong>I think if we don\u2019t get some strong intervention in this short period, some of the gains we made last year, and I\u2019ve been interviewed last year where I said, if we do what Joburg Water\u2019s planned turnaround strategy is, if we implement that as fast as possible, we could have a stable system in two to three years.<\/p>\n<p>Listen\/read: \u2018Leaking bucket of money\u2019: Joburg water crisis laid bare<\/p>\n<p>If we don\u2019t, and if we carry on this trajectory, you\u2019re looking at five years, if not longer. I won\u2019t say that it\u2019s a point of no return, but I am concerned if we don\u2019t act and get the national attention that we need.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>What does strong intervention then, in that respect, actually mean?<\/p>\n<p><strong>FERRIAL ADAM: <\/strong>We are saying that the president (Cyril Ramaphosa) must not, in his Sona (State of the Nation Address), give empty promises, but he must give actual things that can happen on the ground. We want to see that ring-fencing of funds happens quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Jeremy, they\u2019ve been talking about ring-fencing of funds. We\u2019ve asked for it. We\u2019ve been campaigning for it for about three years.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Last year the president (mentioned it) in his speech. They take so long to get these things done. But if you were hosting a G20, all of a sudden, things change.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I do think that they can act quickly. When they tell us that no, you can\u2019t, they just don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>So they need to ring-fence the funding for water and sanitation. They need to increase the budget for Joburg Water. It just needs simple things.<\/p>\n<div class=\"visible-sm-block visible-xs-block m1010\">\n<div class=\"ad-container-wrapper\">\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n<p>CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>You need to fix a few reservoirs to create a stable system. Finish Brixton, get the Hurst Hill 1 and 2 going, and Alexander Park, and fix the Crosby and Hector Norris Pump Stations. That is what is needed just to get us stable.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>Why do you think that\u2019s not happening? How difficult is that to start on the trajectory that you\u2019re recommending?<\/p>\n<p><strong>FERRIAL ADAM: <\/strong>The first problem is, and the main problem is, that Joburg Water does not have control over its budget. The City of Joburg may say to Joburg Water, okay, your allocation in the budget is R1.7 billion for capex. But they don\u2019t have that money in the bank.<\/p>\n<p>So what happens then is they don\u2019t have money to pay contractors. Then projects all get delayed and workers down tools. So they cannot function with this stop-start staccato behaviour. We need it to be streamlined, flowing like water and working.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of October 2025, Joburg Water owed R1 billion to 203 contractors. The reason Brixton Reservoir and Tower have not been completed yet is because there were disputes about payments.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>The ongoing bonus dispute that I mentioned at the start of our conversation, and also the go-slow at Johannesburg Water, Dr Adam, how is that impacting emergency repairs and maintenance?<\/p>\n<p><strong>FERRIAL ADAM: <\/strong>It\u2019s completely impacting it. The whole Commando System that has been without water for all these days I\u2019ve mentioned, they could not continue with walking down the line and trying to figure out what the technical issue is. That was the one thing. So that was delayed by about four or five days.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>There were no water tankers. So you have no water, but there are no water tankers. Think about the vulnerable people who cannot afford to just go to the shops and buy those five litres or whatever people are buying.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It does impact on that as well. Then any burst pipes or leakages anywhere else in the city, you don\u2019t have a team to fix it. So it just creates chaos.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>The whole issue of outages in poorer or informal areas. Are they, Dr Adam, disproportionately worse, and if so, do you have any sense of what is being done to prioritise the most affected communities within that paradigm?<\/p>\n<p><strong>FERRIAL ADAM: <\/strong>Yes, I do think it\u2019s worse. Because if we look at a lot of the informal settlements that we\u2019ve been working with, they are completely reliant on JoJo tanks or water tankers.<\/p>\n<p>So any kind of thing that goes down with the water tankers, and let\u2019s be honest, water tankers should not be the norm. Also, the number of people who live in these communities, water tankers cannot manage to give them all water.<\/p>\n<p>Listen\/read:<br \/>Warnings grow as SA\u2019s water infrastructure nears breaking point<br \/>Water tanker mafias are threatening SA infrastructure and service delivery<\/p>\n<div class=\"visible-sm-block visible-xs-block m1010\">\n<div class=\"ad-container-wrapper\">\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n<p>CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>They go at times when \u2026 Last night, I believe at midnight, there were water tankers in Melville. Who\u2019s going to go and collect water at midnight? There isn\u2019t a good roster of how these tankers are working. They don\u2019t have enough water, so when you are at the water tanker, they\u2019ll say, we\u2019ve run out of water, and whoever is still in the queue, tough for them.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the one thing. The second thing we\u2019ve realised is they also use, and we must always link water and sanitation, they also have to use these VIP toilets, and they\u2019re on street corners. So people are drinking bad water, they\u2019re getting diarrhoea. They\u2019re having issues with VIP toilets, having to go there, (especially) women in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n<p>Read: Joburg Water confirms strike over, but will water flow from taps?<\/p>\n<p>The third thing is people are then forced to start thinking about how they spend their basic salary, or their little bit of money that they do have. Do they buy food? Do they buy water? Do they buy their medication? These are the questions people are asking themselves, like, what can I do today?<\/p>\n<p>For the elderly, we know that some of the people can\u2019t carry the buckets, they can\u2019t walk all the way to the water tankers or the JoJo tanks. They\u2019re paying, they\u2019re using their Sassa (South African Social Security Agency) grant to pay young men R20, R50 to go and fetch water for them.<\/p>\n<p>In essence, they\u2019re double paying for water.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>Well, there\u2019s absolutely no doubt the situation, from what I\u2019m hearing, is getting a lot worse. Dr Ferrial Adam, thank you very much indeed, executive director of the organisation WaterCAN.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve been attending a briefing of the Johannesburg mayor. Let\u2019s hear from the city\u2019s mayor now, Dada Morero, speaking at that briefing earlier today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>DADA MORERO: <\/strong>We are not near to day zero. But yes, for people who have not had water at all, logically, it would mean they\u2019ve been at day zero. We need to make sure that we look at those areas, sort those areas that have been adversely affected, and ensure that we can pick up.<\/p>\n<p>I think the weather is also not assisting, in terms of the heatwave, and people are consuming more water. So we need to ensure that we pick up (MD \u2026\u2026 9:08) and the team.<\/p>\n<p>We have also taken a decision this morning that we will be visiting all the depots, meeting with the actual engineers on the ground, technicians on the ground, to understand the gravity of the challenges that we have.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<br \/>PTA, JHB and Cape Town all hit by water-supply shortages<br \/>War room set up in Johannesburg as water crisis spurs protests<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Moneyweb\u2019s in-depth finance and business news on WhatsApp here.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script data-cfasync=\"false\">\n            !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n            {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n                n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n                if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n                n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n                t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n                s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n                'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n            fbq('init', '779812924991616');\n            fbq('track', 'PageView');\n        <\/script>#Infrastructure #failure #pushes #Joburg #day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can also listen to this po&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[384,2633,443,10348,1335],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}