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SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMIC HUB’S WATER SYSTEM ON VERGE OF COLLAPSE

19th March 2024 BY: Bloomberg
Photo by: Creamer Media
Photo by: Creamer Media
Photo by: Creamer Media
Photo by: Creamer Media
Photo by: Creamer Media
‹›


South Africa is facing the prospect of a breakdown in the water supply to its
industrial heartland and most-populated region, adding to the woes of an economy
battered by power outages, congested ports and a broken freight-rail system.

Rand Water, Africa’s biggest bulk-water supplier, on March 16 told three
municipalities in the central Gauteng province — Johannesburg, Tshwane and
Ekurhuleni, which have a combined population of more than 13-million people —
that its system was on the verge of collapse. The warning comes after a large
swath of Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, was left without water for
as long as 11 days, with some areas still without supply after lightening struck
a pump station.

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“Rand Water systems are under severe pressure,” the City of Tshwane, which
includes the capital Pretoria, said in a statement. “The entire water supply
system, which we share, is under strain.”

Like South Africa’s power plants and transport networks, the country’s
water-supply systems have deteriorated because of inadequate maintenance, a lack
of planning for population growth, mismanagement, corruption and political
infighting. Johannesburg Water, which distributes water in the city, loses 44%
of the volume supplied to it to leaks and theft.

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“The more that Rand Water pumps into this leaking sieve, the more they are
depleting their reservoirs,” said Anthony Turton, a professor at the Centre for
Environmental Management at South Africa’s University of the Free State. “The
system is now starting to self destruct.”

Rand Water’s reservoirs have drained to about 30% full since the end of
December, from more than 70%. Usage by the three main metropolitan areas has
surged to about 3.4-billion liters a day, its highest in at least six months,
with a prolonged spell of hot weather up driving up volumes.

In total, the utility can supply more than 4.6-billion liters daily — it also
supplies a number of smaller municipalities as well as users in three other
provinces — covering an area of more than 18 000 square kilometers. Rand Water
and Johannesburg Water didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Interruptions to water supply to mines and factories are threatening economic
activity, Busi Mavuso, the chief executive officer of lobby group Business
Leadership South Africa, said in a March 10 column.

“We understand the challenges that both entities are facing,” Kabelo Gwamanda,
Johannesburg’s mayor, told 702 Talk Radio in an interview in which he dismissed
criticism of the city’s struggle to supply sufficient water. “It has always been
an issue of overconsumption.”

With national elections just over two months away, the water shortage has become
a political crisis, with officials and utilities shifting blame over an issue
that has angered voters.

Gwamanda is Johannesburg’s seventh mayor since December 2019, his appointment
emblematic of the infighting and constantly changing coalitions that critics say
have crippled management of the city. He is a member of the Al Jama-ah party
that holds 3 of the 270 seats in the city council, and was appointed because
larger parties couldn’t agree on an alternate candidate.

“There are really serious management capacity problems,” said Mike Muller, a
water consultant and former director-general of South Africa’s Department of
Water and Sanitation. “It’s not a supply crisis. There is real weakness in the
municipalities.”

A systems update issued by Johannesburg Water on Monday listed a number of
“critically low” reservoirs and areas with little or no supply. In a statement
earlier this month, Rand Water said it’s owed more than R3-billion by
municipalities that haven’t paid their bills.

“There has been 10 years of neglect, not putting the funding in place required
for maintenance,” said Ferrial Adam, manager of the water program at the
Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, a nonprofit group focused on exposing
corruption.

Repairs to a pipe that burst and cut off supply to several suburbs in northern
Johannesburg earlier this month were first delayed by a shortage of welders and
then by a lack of diesel they needed to run their equipment, according to a
local city councillor.

Gwamanda has also faced criticism after it emerged that an inexplicably closed
valve prevented water from flowing into parts of the city from Rand Water,
delaying the restoration of services.

“The system is now at breaking point,” Adam said. 

EDITED BY: Bloomberg

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