JOHANNESBURG — The City of Johannesburg is facing intense scrutiny from the civil society organization WaterCAN over a crippling R6 billion debt owed to Joburg Water. According to WaterCAN spokesperson Dr. Ferrial Adam, the metro’s persistent practice of sweeping funds from the utility’s accounts has left the entity financially paralyzed, directly threatening essential water services and stalling critical infrastructure repairs across the region.
At the heart of the crisis is a financial mechanism involving the city’s semi-autonomous entities, which include Joburg Water, City Power, Joburg Roads, and Pikitup. National Treasury previously granted the municipality permission to consolidate funds from these entities into a single account to accumulate interest. However, this arrangement came with a strict condition: the money had to be returned to the respective entities within 24 hours.
Dr. Adam highlighted that this condition has been routinely ignored. Over the course of two financial years, the city withdrew R4 billion from Joburg Water and failed to restore it. That outstanding balance has now ballooned to R6 billion, with no transparent evidence indicating repayment is imminent. Although the city publicly committed to ring-fencing the water and sanitation budget starting July 1, WaterCAN pointed out that this promise was hollow, as the utility’s accounts had already been drained to zero by that date.
The absence of operational funding has triggered a cascade of service failures. Joburg Water is currently unable to finance basic functions, including the deployment of water tankers to informal settlements. Furthermore, a lack of funds has crippled telecommunications at local depots, meaning head offices cannot contact field teams to dispatch them for urgent repairs.
This financial freeze is also devastating long-term capital projects. Contractors have repeatedly downed tools due to unpaid invoices, resulting in an estimated 1,400 days of cumulative project downtime and driving up long-term rehabilitation costs. The Hurst Hill 2 reservoir serves as a stark example. Initiated early this year with a targeted completion date of December, the project is currently only 20 percent complete and is now expected to roll over into the following year.
The delay is particularly damaging because the Hurst Hill 2 reservoir was designed to stabilize water pressure in the Commando system, which supplies Emmarentia, Melville, Parktown West, and parts of Mayfair. Residents in these areas, including recent severe outages in Melville, are bearing the direct consequences of these stalled upgrades.
The mismanagement has also escalated to a national level. The deputy director-general of the Department of Water and Sanitation recently cautioned that water revenue is increasingly being treated as a “cash cow” to subsidize other municipal services. Dr. Adam noted that this highlights a systemic flaw in municipal finance structures. For decades, cities have cross-subsidized general operations using revenue from rates, water, sanitation, and electricity. However, years of deferred infrastructure maintenance mean that utilities now require massive capital injections for basic repairs—funds they are being denied access to.
WaterCAN is also challenging the integrity of recent municipal audits. The organization argues that auditors previously gave the city a clean bill of health simply because the R6 billion debt was recorded on the city’s ledger as an amount owed. WaterCAN contends that a ledger entry is not true accountability, demanding full transparency on exactly how and where the missing billions were spent.
While Dr. Adam expressed skepticism that the R6 billion will be voluntarily repaid under the current management structure, she affirmed that WaterCAN will maintain relentless pressure on the municipality. The organization is formally urging the Water Commission (WaterCom) to intervene, calling on the regulatory body to demonstrate the political will necessary to uncover the financial trail and restore accountability for the public.
