Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina held an urgent meeting on Sunday with Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi and Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero to address severe water shortages affecting Johannesburg communities.

While Gauteng municipalities rack up a debt of R7.3-billion to Rand Water, Johannesburg residents are experiencing widespread water outages, with communities across the city struggling for days without supply.

Loyiso Toyiya, a community leader from Diepsloot, told Daily Maverick that his community was left without water from Wednesday, 6 November, until Sunday night.

"It was one of those difficult situations, where we were not even informed prior that we must expect [water cuts]," he said. "So everyone was caught off guard, to the point that people were even going to the stream to fetch dirty water, to boil it and drink."

Only on Friday did Johannesburg Water send water tankers to Diepsloot and inform customers that Diepsloot Reservoir was empty, which affected the supply to Diepsloot, Riverside View and Steyn City. On Saturday, the water entity reported that it was working to clear the airlock issue in the pipes, and pump failures were due to issues with power failures within the Palmiet system.

Diepsloot ext 4 Masheroni Street. *PM pic.twitter.com/02r2tPZiJq-- Johannesburg Water (@JHBWater) November 9, 2024

On Sunday at 7am, before water was restored to Toyiya's...