JOHANNESBURG - Day Zero is a reality for most Johannesburg residents, and the government must declare a state of disaster to avert further damage.
This is according to the Water Communication Activity Network, Water Forum, as the City continues to grapple with scores of outages.
More than 20 notable disruptions have been reported in the last two weeks.
Water Forum’s Belinda Belseck says communities in areas fed by the Hurtshill, Alexandre Park and Berea reservoirs have been without water for six to 21 days.
“Those people, those businesses are effectively living Day Zero and they’ve been living it over 20 days in some cases," Belseck said.
"The City must start to take actual measures to acknowledge that Day Zero is something that is a reality for many Johannesburg residents.”
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Belseck said Johannesburg’s crisis was driven by infrastructure failure, poor planning and weak accountability.
“What becomes crucial is that we’re now at a place where we must call on the authorities to really call this what it is, ‘a national disaster’. Johannesburg is the economic heart of Africa and thinking that it can function without water access normalises the suffering of residents and signals a failure of governance.”
“We really need to be able to enforce coordination across spheres of government and those will compel transparent communication from both Johannesburg Water and Rand Water,” Belseck added.