Africa

< Johannesburg's water crisis is the latest blow to South Africa's 'world-class city'

April 1, 20245:00 AM ET

Johannesburg's water crisis is the latest blow to South Africa's 'world-class city'

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A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa, and a breakdown in basic services has some of the city's nearly 6 million residents seething. Some 50% have been facing water shortages or no water at all for weeks. This ahead of the most pivotal election since the end of apartheid set for May. Kate Bartlett reports.

(CHEERING)

KATE BARTLETT, BYLINE: I'm in a neighborhood in Soweto where people are celebrating Human Rights Day, a national public holiday in South Africa. But many Sowetans say there's not much to celebrate this year. They've been without water for weeks. The taps here are totally dry. There's dancing and singing at a local community center in the township of Soweto, on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

MOSES MABASO: We need water almost for everything. Without water, there's no life.

BARTLETT: But Moses Mabaso, a 46-year-old security officer, isn't in a festive mood. He spent most of the day looking for somewhere to fill up his buckets.

MABASO: So it's a challenge. It's terrible. We cannot say we are celebrating Human Rights Day because we don't have the basic right, which is access to water.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER POURING)

BARTLETT: Mabaso didn't see any of the tankers the government says they've sent out across the city, but he's finally found a Soweto resident who has water supply and is letting others from the neighborhood fill up with a hosepipe. Desperate people are pulling makeshift trolleys loaded with buckets to come and collect a few liters. 37-year-old mother of four Lungile Khoza has been without water at her home for three weeks. The kids are dehydrated and sick and she can't run her small hair salon, so she's losing money. She doesn't hesitate when asked who she blames.

LUNGILE KHOZA: Our government is so failing us. We are finished because it's not getting better. It's getting worse.

BARTLETT: Numerous recent polls have shown the African National Congress party getting below 50% of the vote for the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994 in elections on May 29. Johannesburg officials say the current water crisis started when lightning hit a major pump station at the beginning of March. They say it's been exacerbated by high demand amid a heatwave. But experts like Anja du Plessis, a professor at the University of South Africa, says it goes much further than that.

ANJA DU PLESSIS: The continued dysfunctional and inept state of the local municipality, ongoing lack of service delivery, poor and uninformed water governance, as well as the continued lack of political will of government are the primary factors of concern.

BARTLETT: The failing infrastructure does not discriminate, and it's not just water. Like the rest of the country, Johannesburg residents regularly experience planned blackouts known as load-shedding to ease pressure on the electricity grid, sometimes for up to 10 hours a day. Trash lies uncollected for days and the streets are riddled with potholes, which some frustrated citizens have taken to spray-painting with the ironic tagline, thank you ANC. The rich, unable to rely on the municipality, are going off-grid - digging boreholes, buying water storage tanks and installing solar. For most residents of Soweto, though, there are no such options.

ZANELE SITHOLE: They are affected because some of them, hygiene is key.

BARTLETT: For Zanele Sithole, the lack of water is a matter of life and death. Her mother is suffering from cancer, but what frustrates her most is that no one takes responsibility.

SITHOLE: It's so sad because you can't even hold anybody accountable to say, yeah, let's go to the court of law. No, no, no, they don't even know. And they don't care.

BARTLETT: Officials have repeatedly said they're getting the problem under control, but each day brings news of a new problem.

For NPR News, I'm Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE TEA AND KEEPLOVE.'S "LEUPE")

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