The Democratic Alliance has been inundated with concerns from residents about the fact that their taps are dry, while water is running down the streets of Johannesburg. At the core of this issue is the hapless board of Johannesburg Water.
The first official month of summer, has been marked with notices by Joburg Water that multiple water systems in Johannesburg are constrained and others depleted – all while Joburg water sits with a volume of 46% non-revenue water losses – that is water lost before it reaches the customer and before it can be billed.
Based on the information available and latest expose by the Daily Maverick, it is clear that incompetent board appointments and polices of poor governance are hindering officials from being able to implement the necessary steps, and conduct important repairs and maintenance, costing the entity and residents dearly.
The biggest concern for the DA is that the City of Johannesburg is the 100% shareholder in Joburg Water. It is a state entity. They, however, just accept the accusations thrown at it by the Deputy Minister of Water & Sanitation instead of addressing his concerns, and pointing out failures which have led to the decline.
Seeing as the government of Johannesburg fails to listen to residents, on behalf of the residents in the City, we call on the ANC-ActionSA-EFF coalition to:
- Stop Cadre Deployment from ANC branches to the board of Joburg Water in its tracks, and dissolve the board, pending a review of board members’ qualifications and what brought them to their seats;
- A full audit of the board focused on identifying weak spots;
- Appoint capable board members, whole will make the right decisions on contractors that will complete the work they set out to do.
Johannesburg Water should also receive a fair share of capital grants received by the CoJ from the National Treasury to support the provision of water and sanitation services to poor people, which makes up so much of are informal areas as cost of living and unemployment rise in the country.
We are launching this petition to show the executive in the CoJ what they seem to be ignoring. The people of Johannesburg are tired of their dry taps, and refuse to accept inaction any longer. The people will speak