South Africa's largest city is in a water crisis. Cities reporter and Daily Maverick Associate Editor Ferial Haffejee sat down with the Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation, David Mahlobo, and Convenor of the Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng, Dr Miriam Altman, to break down the scale of the crisis, and how we can get out of it.

"Our system is completely shattered -- 50% of the reservoirs leak, our pipes are from the 1950s and '60s, we haven't had proper pipe replacement," said Daily Maverick Associate Editor Ferial Haffajee during a Daily Maverick webinar on Tuesday evening.

"Are any heads going to roll? Or are we just going to leave the same people who made the problem to fix the problem?"

As a Johannesburg resident herself, reporting extensively on the city, Haffajee posed the question to Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation David Mahlobo. She challenged the department's narrative of blaming residents for overconsumption -- which is 60% above global norms -- when nearly half the city's water is lost to leaks and illegal connections.

Haffejee was also joined by Dr Miriam Altman, the Convenor of the Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng, to add expert insight to the discussion.

A crisis of distribution

Deputy Minister Mahlobo opened the discussion by emphasising that "the situation in Gauteng is untenable and it has to be defined as a water crisis".

He clarified, however, that the Vaal River Integrated System, Gauteng's primary water supplier, remains stable. Right...