Ongoing and ever-growing water crisis in Sandton
Thousands of residents in Athol, Inanda and Illovo have been affected by the ongoing water interruptions by Johannesburg Water.
The situation has become unbearable and unexplainable, especially over the past few months.
Please see below summary of water outages in Athol & surrounding areas from March 2025 to date (and I may well have omitted a few):-
11 March - 'burst water pipe' (no water for 3 days)
25 March - 'repairs to burst water pipe' (no water for 1 day)
30 April - 'burst water pipe on Pretoria Road' (no water for 3.5 days)
9-13 May - 'burst water pipe on Pretoria Road' (no water for 4 days)
4 June - 'burst water pipe and low reservoir levels' (no water for 4 days)
1 July - 'repair valve at Linbro Park and low reservoirs levels' (no water for 4 days)
15 July - 'Rand Water maintenance' (no water for 4 days so far)
This amounts to a cumulative approximate 23.5 days without water in the past 4 months, which means no water once in every 5 days.
As you are no doubt aware, the right to have access to sufficient water is a right enshrined in s27(1)(b) of the Constitution and can only be limited with adequate justification.
The Pretoria Road closure is one example of the inability of Johannesburg Water to adequately justify these water outages.
Pretoria Road has been closed for well over 20 months now - a main road that services the CBD in Johannesburg.
On 22 October 2024, Johannesburg Water turned off the water for 2 days (without prior notification) to attempt to repair the burst pipe. After 2 days, no progress was made, due to no planning on their part, and the water was turned back on.
On 30 April 2025, Johannesburg Water turned off the water for a further 3.5 days to attempt to repair the burst water pipe. Once again, after 3.5 days, no progress was made, again, due to no planning on their part, and the water was turned back on.
On 9 May 2025, Johannesburg Water turned off the water for 4 days to repair the burst pipe. This time, they planned adequately and the pipe was repaired.
However, Johannesburg Water denied people a constitutional right for 5.5 days in total, on two separate occasions, due to a lack of planning on their part.
Residents have photographic evidence, on numerous occasions, whereby Johannesburg Water communicates that their teams are working tirelessly to resolve the 'burst water pipes' but when residents arrive on site, there is not one employee to be seen. An example of this was the 'burst water pipe on Rivonia Road' on 4 June which took Johannesburg Water 4 days to repair and another, the Pretoria Road burst pipe.
Johannesburg Water also does not stick to their deadlines - the most recent being the current ongoing Rand Water maintenance - which was supposed to be finished on Friday 18 July 2025 at 08h00 (yet thousands of residents are still without water 2 days later). They 'justify' the delays in restoration of water by 'low reservoir levels' time and time again. They fail to provide adequate updates timeously. For example, they released communication to justify the delay in the ongoing maintenance on Saturday 19 July 2025, when their notice clearly indicated the maintenance would be complete by Friday 18 July 2025 at 08h00.
Residents cannot be expected to pay Johannesburg Water for services that they do not deliver. It is patently clear that there are deeper issues underlying this water crisis - that being NO WATER ONCE IN EVERY FIVE DAYS FOR THE PAST 4 MONTHS - these issues need to be dealt with at the highest level; and a detailed explanation communicated to all residents as a matter of extreme urgency; failing which residents will have no choice but to utilise all remedies available to them to protect the exercise of their constitutional rights.
Yvonne Attieh Contact the author of the petition