South Africans say criminal gangs are exploiting the water crisis

In the Johannesburg suburb of Greenside, a large group of protesters of all ages and backgrounds are waving placards and banging empty plastic bottles together.

"We want water, we want water!" they chant.

Northern Johannesburg is known for its plush leafy suburbs. But after years of intermittent water shortages, residents say they are fed up. Some have had no running water for over a month.

"Our pipes have been bone dry with no water coming through at all," says Colin Regesky, who lives in Green Hill. "It's not very healthy because everyone can get sick with no running water. And also according to the constitution it's our right to have water."

Another protester, Jenny Gillies, has lived in Melville for 40 years. "I am here today because it is an actual disgrace," she says. "We are reduced to begging and protesting for water."

From 2022 to early 2024, Johannesburg, South Africa's economic hub, suffered crippling electricity shortages, which were managed via a process known as load shedding.

Blackouts lasting up to eight hours a day severely disrupted the lives of ordinary South Africans and businesses. Experts blamed a long-standing lack of investment in the country's ageing power stations.

But over the past year, water shortages have become a greater concern, with some residents saying these are worse because of how essential clean water is for good health.

And Johannesburg isn't the only area affected. In Hammanskraal, more than 100km (60 miles) north of the city, 35-year-old pastor Tshepo Mahlaule shows us a dry tap in his backyard.

"This is what is happening in Hammanskraal, there's no water. People are striving for water. For two months there's no water. Our kids need to wash every day, their uniforms need to be washed and we have no water."

The residents of the township have not had reliable access to clean water for over a decade, on and off.

The municipality has resorted to paying for tankers to deliver drinking water to residents. The local opposition Democratic Alliance has accused criminal syndicates known as water mafias of monopolising the water tanker industry – but didn't provide any evidence to the BBC that this was happening.

"Water mafias are people that get tenders to do work for the municipality," explains Dr Ferrial Adam, who is the executive director of Watercan, a non-profit that works to safeguard South Africa's water resources.

"Then either they don't have the expertise, or once they get hold of a tender to provide an alternative supply of water, they don't want the tender to end, so they damage and vandalise infrastructure so that they can continue working.

"And then you also have the ones that are charging people for water where they shouldn't be."

Another Hammanskraal resident, 62-year-old Eric Sebotsane, confirms that some of the trucks that deliver water in his neighbourhood charge people for water which should be free of charge.

"There are criminals everywhere. Some of the truck drivers sell the water. When you say you want water they say you must buy. Because everything here is money, when you don't have money you can't do anything."

Last year, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa urged law enforcement and local governments to put an end to criminal gangs running water tankers.

Dr Adam says water mafias first arose elsewhere in South Africa, in KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape.

"There you've got a large population in rural communities where they need water because there's no infrastructure. Also with climate change and the intense floods we've been seeing in these areas, it's washed away a lot of the infrastructure. So that's how these mafia started providing water with tankers."

She says the authorities have done nothing to stem the problem and that residents in the worst affected areas are scared.

"It creates fear because this is now your supply of water.

"People won't tell you about the other illegal things happening in their area. They are afraid to come out and say the kind of things that are happening, because then they won't get water. They feel as if the mafia won't go to their streets anymore."

She adds that, similar to the power shortages, the main reason for the outages is a lack of investment in South Africa's water infrastructure. But water mafias make a bad problem worse, she says.

Cilliers Brink, a Democratic Alliance politician who was mayor of Tshwane, the municipality that manages Hammanskraal, says a potential solution could be for the local government to buy its own tankers.

"That will still be open to some abuse. However, you'd take the incentive away from contractors. If the municipality operates these tankers by themselves, you take the outside incentive away, and that will also save a great deal of money. But obviously, the longer-term solution must be to fix infrastructure."

Brink, mayor from 2023-4 and running to be in charge once again, says the current municipal administration has failed to manage the situation.

For Ferrial Adam buying tankers is not a sustainable solution.

"It's not viable. In the city of Johannesburg, they might have to do that. But whether it can be done all across the country, I don't know.

"In smaller towns we could find better solutions than water tanks, like using borehole water. But water tanks must be a very short-term measure for when there's an outage or a drought. They mustn't be the norm. And for many communities right now, they have become the norm."

In Hammanskraal, a couple of car washers are filling up at a public tap while in the background, tankers refill. For every car washed, the workers walk 2km, carrying heavy water containers in wheelbarrows every time. Water shortages make the daily lives of the country's poorest even more difficult.

We contacted the Tshwane local authority to ask how it is tackling the issue but got no reply.

In February's State of the Nation Address, Ramaphosa said that a National Water Crisis Committee would be established to ensure a co-ordinated response to the water crisis.

Addressing parliament last week, he said solving the country's water crisis required a "multifaceted approach" – and announced that municipal managers who failed to meet their obligations under the National Water Act would personally face criminal charges.

Ramaphosa said his government's interventions in the water crisis should "make a real and lasting difference in people's lives".

For residents here, an end to the water crisis cannot come soon enough.

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.