JOHANNESBURG - The Gauteng government admits it can’t set a deadline to end the province’s water crisis.
The South African Human Rights Commission is now gearing up to investigate.
It's launching an inquiry this week into recurring water outages and poor water quality.
The Commission has summoned every municipal manager in Gauteng to a two-day hearing, which kicks off in Braamfontein on Tuesday.
The Gauteng government credits collaboration across national, provincial, and local levels for averting a total collapse of the province’s water supply.
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The provincial government concedes that the province’s water crisis runs deep, but says it will outline interventions on Sunday aimed at turning the situation around.
"The timelines of exactly when, we will be able to announce it once we’ve got a totality of things together," said Jacoba Mamabolo, Cogta MEC.
"The problem often is, if we announce the timeline, when we’ve not looked at resources, be it financial resource, technology, the way we’re going to do it, how we’re going to plan it at national, province, then we will be misleading the people, and that’s what we shouldn’t do."
He conceded that corruption and a lack of technical skills are part of the problem.
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Municipalities across the country have been allocated R12-billion in conditional grants for water projects in the current financial year.
The City of Johannesburg is currently grappling with a R32.5 billion backlog in water infrastructure upgrades. On top of that, 22 percent of water assets are rated poor or very poor, an alarming sign for the city’s future supply.
In Tshwane, a March council report warned that the capital needs urgent maintenance and upgrades to its water and sanitation systems. According to Mayoral Committee Member for Utility Services Frans Boshielo, the upgrades will need R29 billion.
The metro has already spent R621 million on water tankers in the 2024/25 financial year alone.
Report by Moloko Moloto