Residents of Johannesburg have been battling irregular water supply and low pressure for months. Some suburbs in the South Africa’s economic hub go for days without water.

In the four-and-a-half months between October 2024 and mid-February 2025, Joburg Water issued more than 400 notices to alert residents to low reservoir levels, maintenance and ‘water throttling’. Most of the notices relate to reservoir levels. The second-highest number of notices are about reduced water pressure, a strategy used by Joburg Water to manage supply.

Perhaps more concerning are the more than 80 notices about ‘unplanned maintenance’ and just under 40 for managed maintenance.

More than 100 alerts were issued in November alone, most of which were linked to work carried out by City Power on a substation that affected a water pumping station. This interrupted the water supply to reservoirs and resulted in the people of Coronationville having no water for over a week.