Overview
- Residents from multiple suburbs protested over weeks‑long outages, with some reporting 20 to 24 days without reliable supply and fresh demonstrations in the south calling on President Cyril Ramaphosa to intervene before SONA.
- City officials reject a citywide ‘Day Zero’, urge reduced consumption, and say water tankers and mobile storage are being deployed, though many residents report relief is patchy and insufficient.
- An Intergovernmental Water War Room now coordinates real‑time responses as Johannesburg Water implements throttling, bulk meter restrictions, pressure management and leak detection, while the Brixton reservoir enters testing.
- Rand Water warns that abnormally high use is keeping the bulk system under pressure and says it will cut supply to high‑consuming municipalities to restore stability, after storage levels fell sharply.
- The Democratic Alliance moves for urgent court action to compel the City to execute its turnaround plan, while WaterCAN presses for a national disaster declaration citing infrastructure decay and prolonged outages.