{"id":628912,"date":"2026-02-12T12:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=628912"},"modified":"2026-02-12T13:00:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:00:23","slug":"water-shedding-announced-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/science\/628912-water-shedding-announced-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Water-shedding announced in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Deputy water and sanitation minister David Mahlobo says that water authorities in Gauteng will start implementing “load-shifting” to avoid a total collapse of the province’s water systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The measure was one of several “soft” water restrictions outlined by Mahlobo and Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi at a media briefing on Wednesday in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The update came amid widespread water outages and low pressure in various areas of the city and two other large metros in Gauteng \u2014 Ekurhuleni and Tshwane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issues were exacerbated by an illegal strike by Johannesburg Water workers, which started on 6 February. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groups of residents in some areas of Johannesburg that have been without water, including northern Melville, have taken to the streets in small pickets in recent days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahlobo said that most reservoirs in the province were below 60% and that it would take more than 10 days to stabilise the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister said that load-shifting would be used to move water from reservoirs and parts of the system in a healthy state to help address shortages in other areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Redirecting water in this manner requires shutting off or throttling flow from stable reservoirs to their conventional supply areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Households and businesses in these areas will therefore be subjected to intermittent water cuts or low pressure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahlobo said that the measures may also impact supply in provinces adjacent to Gauteng, including North West and Mpumalanga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister also stressed the urgency of dealing with high water losses. “There are too many pies that are gushing water,” he said. “They are not being replaced on time when the system is vulnerable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister has directed Rand Water, Johannesburg Water, and other municipal water authorities to increase shifts for their teams working on infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There’s going to be a shift for nights, so that if an incident is reported, then a team is dispatched with the tools of trade,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also promised that the government would deal with illegal connections to the water system and that this practice was “going to fall.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years of neglect coming back to haunt South Africa <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The City of Joburg and City of Tshwane have frequently blamed water outages on residents consuming “excessive” amounts of water, especially during hot periods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it is important to emphasise that Gauteng’s primary upstream source \u2014 the Vaal Dam \u2014 has been at or above 100% capacity throughout the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water experts have maintained that the real source of the problem is years-long neglect of distribution infrastructure and a lack of investment in replacing pipes and upgrading storage and pumping capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democratic Alliance federal council chair and mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille, recently criticised the City of Joburg for trying to blame residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aligning with the experts, Zille accused the city of failing to fix ageing, broken infrastructure and disputed its claim that residents in Johannesburg use double the world’s average per person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She illustrated her point by sitting with her feet in a small “lake” in Linbro Park, which had formed after a burst water pipe had been leaking millions of litres of drinking water for nearly a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past year, numerous Johannesburg residents have posted videos of leaking pipes across the city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many cases, they complained that their reports to the city’s water authorities were ignored for multiple days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahlobo recently told Parliament that it will cost R400 billion to rectify the backlog in investments in water and sanitation systems in the country. Only R26 billion was budgeted for the current financial year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Estimates have suggested that the total money needed to fix the existing problems and meet rising water demand in South Africa over the next decade is around R1 trillion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deputy water and sanitation minister David Mahlobo says that water authorities in Gauteng will start implementing “load-shifting” to avoid a total collapse of the province’s water systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":628922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31750],"tags":[9994,20973,28859,49701,9365,5730,70567,103304,4916,72180,42372,103303,103302,93225,96511],"class_list":["post-628912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-city-of-joburg","tag-city-of-tshwane","tag-david-mahlobo","tag-department-of-water-and-sanitation","tag-gauteng","tag-helen-zille","tag-johannesburg-water","tag-load-shifting","tag-panyaza-lesufi","tag-rand-water","tag-water","tag-water-cuts","tag-water-shortage","tag-water-shortages","tag-water-shedding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628912"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628912"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":628964,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628912\/revisions\/628964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}