Joburg staring down the barrel

In any other country, if a government had so catastrophically mismanaged the provision of basic services such as water and electricity, it would be quaking in its boots ahead of a general election. Our ANC rulers will, no doubt, characterise the latest evidence of their failures as another in the list of the “challenges” they are bravely tackling, all the while keeping a straight face as the rest of us see the reality that those challenges were their fault.

While the residents of Johannesburg have, for the longest time, felt themselves isolated from the worst, and potentially most damaging, failures of our government, this past fortnight has shattered that illusion.

The richest urban area in Africa is now staring down the barrel of a catastrophic water supply crisis, according to the executive manager of NGO WaterCAN, Dr Ferrial Adam.

The immediate crisis, which has seen households across the city without water for a second week, was triggered by electrical failures related to the major pumping station at Eikenhof, south of the city.

Though these have supposedly been resolved, the city’s reservoirs are still running dry because, according to Joburg Water, demand is outstripping the capacity to fill them.

Yet, even more problematic is the failure of Joburg Water and its supplier, Rand Water, to plan for the future by monitoring the state of crumbling infrastructure and to maintain and replace it timeously.

This has meant that as much as a third of water in the cities in Gauteng has been lost through leaks from old and damaged pipes. Experts say, for example, that leak detection systems – which could give real-time warnings of water losses – are not up to the task.

These problems should not happen in a functioning metropolis. The fact that they do is testament, yet again, to the ANC’s disastrous cadre deployment policy.