Johannesburg residents protest after a week without water
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Groundup
Residents of several Johannesburg neighbourhoods demonstrated after a week without drinking water in areas supplied by the Commando network. Residents denounce recurring night-time outages and insufficient communication from Johannesburg Water, GroundUp reports.
Dozens of Johannesburg residents demonstrated outside the Brixton police station on Saturday to demand the restoration of water supplies, after an outage lasting a week in several neighbourhoods. They are supplied by the Commando network, according to GroundUp.
Ayesha Kajee, a resident of Mayfair West, said she had been without water for seven days. Zahida Osman, the organiser of the demonstration and a resident of Crosby, said the night-time outages had been continuing for years and that residents received little information from Johannesburg Water, the municipal water utility. Water tankers are rare and, when they arrive, residents are not always notified.
The Commando network serves Brixton, Mayfair, Crosby, Langlaagte and Westbury, among other areas, in the centre and west of the city. Ingrid Bester, of the Johannesburg Water Crisis Committee, believes these neighbourhoods serve as a “canary in the coal mine” for the city’s infrastructure: their altitude makes them particularly vulnerable to disruptions to pumps, supplies or electricity. Local reservoirs are currently being bypassed because of cracks and leaks, and the new Brixton storage tower has not resolved the supply problems.
Residents of several neighbourhoods had already reported a week without water in Johannesburg in a previous report published on 26 October (several neighbourhoods without water).
