Joburg residents may face higher water restrictions if consumption keeps climbing

Johannesburg residents, already grappling with chronic water shortages and limited supply, may soon have to bear increased restrictions and intensified disconnections. This is if Joburg Water is unable to rein in consumption.

The entity hosted a media briefing on Thursday morning to provide an update on the state of water supply in the city and within the troubled Commando system.

Level 1 water restrictions have been in place across the metro since September, while the city has implemented water reduction from 9pm until 5am in areas with high consumption.

Senior manager for water demand management Logan Munsamy said the entity's temporary abstraction licence was due to expire in the next year.

“We have, with [bulk water supplier] Rand Water, a temporary abstraction licence of roughly 4,936 megalitres [Ml] a day which will now expire in September 2025,” he said.

“Like any other municipality, we're governed by licence agreements and certain statutory requirements. So a permanent abstraction licence of 4,383Ml a day will be effected from October 2025 until 2028. The licence might be reviewed when the Lesotho Highlands Project comes into operation roughly around 2028.”

Munsamy explained that the city has a daily average consumption of 1,750Ml, which will be reduced by Rand Water to 1,600Ml a day from December 1. This is due for further reduction to 1,550Ml between February and April 2025 and “then gradually it will be reduced to 1,356Ml a day by September 2025”.

This, he said, would create a “a gap” which Joburg Water would have to plug.

“Now in that very reduction of supply, to better manage systems, you will see there is already a gap in terms of what we now consume and where we need to be,” he said. 

To mitigate this, Joburg Water announced a range of “aggressive interventions”, some of which are already in place. These include:

• permanent reduction of water supply to prepaid and deep consumption areas (already in place);
• scheduled water restrictions (implemented from November 8);
• repairs and maintenance implemented “to improve the turnaround times from 48 hours to 24";
• intensifying work on pressure reducing valves which are used to “lower system pressures”; and
• intensifying level 3 disconnections in prepayment areas, banned and hijacked buildings in the CBD, as well as informal areas.

Speaking on the last intervention, Munsamy said: “You'll have noticed a few weeks ago we attempted to cut off some illegal connections in the Deep South region and we were faced with some challenges. We're reorganising to go back in such areas so we can better manage our systems.”

Joburg Water also provided an update on the Commando system, which has faced interruptions since November 17 when City Power carried out maintenance at its Eikenhof substation.

This in turn affected Rand Water's Eikenhof pump station and as a result, Commando, Randburg and Soweto among others. The first was the worst affected as “it's the most sensitive”, said Munsamy. 

Affected areas are Melville, Coronationville, Westbury, Emmarentia and a portion of Claremont.

Recovery within the system had been slow despite numerous interventions in place, he said. 

“We've [now] reconfigured our systems, both from the Joburg Water side and from the bulk supplier side, which is starting to show positive results. I can report back that over the last day and a half, we're seeing an upward trajectory in terms of the signs of recovery on our Hursthill system specifically and we are of the view that if the system [continues] in the right direction, normal operations will resume within the next two to three days.”

Turning to the water restrictions in place, Munsamy said level 1 was “not entirely effective. We are looking at increasing that level of restriction possibly to level 2 or higher. We must understand that there's certain protocols that need to be followed because it's highly regulated by the department of water & sanitation.”

Joburg Water MD Ntshavheni Mukwevho clarified this. “The issue of the level of restrictions will only come in if we are not seeing the results that we expect from the technical as well as the water conservation initiatives,” he said.

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