Joburg Runs Dry

Dear Editor

Today, during a DA protest outside the Joburg Municipal Council meeting, we handed over two memoranda of demands to the City of Johannesburg as it continues to bungle the water crisis in the city. These memorandums represent the outrage of hundreds of thousands of residents of the city who are fed-up with unreliable water supply.

• The first DA memorandum was submitted to the office of the Executive Mayor of Johannesburg, Dada Morero, calling for the dissolution of the cadre-appointed board of Johannesburg Water; and
• The second was handed to the Office of the Speaker of the Johannesburg Council, Cllr Nobuhle Mthembu, urging the Speaker to ensure that these processes are properly implemented.

The ANC/ActionSA/EFF/PA coalition governing the City is driving the CoJ into the ground, and cannot be allowed to continue. Their practices of cadre deployment and misgovernance are now clearly failing.

Residents have the right to services, and the right to transparency when services are at risk.

Hundreds of thousands of people face water outages daily in Johannesburg. There can be no trust relationship between the people of Johannesburg, the ANC/ActionSA/EFF/PA coalition governing the City, and Johannesburg Water, when nothing is being done to address the crisis, and two weeks ago a national ministerial intervention was needed.

The alternative from the DA is now unavoidable: dissolve the board of Johannesburg Water, reconstitute it with those who have the necessary technical expertise to fix the mess created by cadres – and stop our taps running dry.

The DA will always fight for the rights of Johannesburg’s residents. The situation in Johannesburg is untenable, and without immediate intervention and changes, we are staring down the barrel of a full-blown humanitarian crisis.

Enough is enough. The Mayor must dissolve the board of Johannesburg water and start to bring about the change people so desperately need.

Regards

Cllr Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku
DA Johannesburg Caucus Leader