Johannesburg, Soweto Run Out of Water as South Africa’s Utilities Face Collapse

Johannesburg and the large township of Soweto nearby have been forced to endure several days without water as electricity problems have knocked out pumping stations and a late summer heat wave has strained reservoirs.

Residents have been forced to rely on bottled water as local utilities have turned down water pressure, or turned off water completely. And outside Johannesburg’s wealthier, leafy suburbs, spare water has been in short supply.

South Africa’s Daily Maverick reported:

On Sunday, 17 March, Johannesburg Water said the system remained under “severe strain”, and the bulk supplier, Rand Water, warned that its system faced imminent collapse. Many taps are still as dry as a bone.

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The water cuts, low pressure and throttling affect the entire system; only some areas have regular supplies. Large parts of Soweto had dry taps and residents reported that local shops ran out of bottled water or could not afford to buy more. Johannesburg Water has between 25 and 28 water tankers – insufficient for the scale of the crisis.

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Rand Water says the heatwave is driving the crisis, as its water demand chart shows. Southern Africa is facing its hottest February and March. … The weather is a factor, but Johannesburg generally has hot summers which are predictable for water planners.

Roughly 10 million people live in the greater Johannesburg metropolitan area. Soweto is a predominantly black area that was separated from the main city under apartheid, and is considered a major portion of Johannesburg today.

Unlike a water shortage that occurred in Cape Town several years ago, which was the result of a drought and a poor national planning for an expanding local population, Johannesburg’s water shortage represents a broader collapse.

South Africa has suffered persistent electricity shortages for several years as a result of poor management by the state-run power company, Eskom, which has suffered cronyism, corruption, and a loss of skilled engineers and manager.

Those electricity shortages have also affected the utilities that rely on electricity to operate. The risk of water shortages has led many wealthier Johannesburg residents to dig boreholes on their own property, which poor people cannot do.

South Africans go to the polls on May 29 for national and provincial elections, and the failures of the African National Congress (ANC) government — which has been in office since the end of apartheid in 1994 — will be a major factor.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.