- Government has called for calm amidst protests over persistent water supply challenges in Westbury and Coronationville, Johannesburg.
In a statement on Thursday, the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) acknowledged the seriousness of the communities’ concerns and said work is underway to implement a long-term, sustainable solutions to ensure reliable water supply to the affected communities.
The City of Johannesburg, through Joburg Water, has announced medium-to-long term measures aimed at sustainably addressing the water challenges.
These include measures to mitigate against the strain caused by low water levels in some of the reservoirs supplying the affected areas, and work by Joburg Water to complete and commission the new Brixton reservoir and tower by the end of October 2025.
Joburg Water is also working on stabilising the system by managing demand with the aim to improve reservoir levels.
Government has directed the City of Johannesburg to implement immediate interim measures to address the current water supply challenges.
“Communities are urged to allow these measures to be carried out without disrupting the workers, as any interference will delay their implementation,” the GCIS said.
While government respects the right of communities to raise their grievances through protests as enshrined in Section 17 of the Constitution, the department emphasised that residents have the responsibility to exercise this right peacefully and without damage to property.
“The destruction of infrastructure and acts of violence only delay the very solutions that communities are demanding,” the GCIS said.
Rand Water Warning – municipalities’ water withdrawals extremely high!!!
Rand Water abstracts, purifies and sells bulk (wholesale) water to all municipalities in Gauteng and parts of Mpumalanga, Free-State and the North-West Provinces. Gauteng Municipalities consume the highest volumes of water (above 80%) produced by Rand Water systems.
Municipalities have been allocated specific quotas in line with the abstraction limits set by the Department of Water and Sanitation.
Figure 1 below: depicts the declining Rand Water storage systems – shown by the red solid line. The decline can be observed from the 22 August 2025. Rand Water continues to pump and supply at maximum capacity; however, storage is declining rapidly owing to high-water withdrawals
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
