Joburg Water says lack of funds holding back efforts to improve infrastructure

JOHANNESBURG - Johannesburg Water says one of the key challenges affecting efforts to improve infrastructure is the lack of financial resources.

The utility has faced criticism for not upgrading its infrastructure to meet the increasing water demand.

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Johannesburg Water officials provided an update during a media briefing on the current state of water supply in the metro.

The City of Johannesburg’s water infrastructure is said to be more than 100 years old and is struggling to support the densely populated metro.

Despite building new reservoirs and refurbishing its pipelines, water challenges continue to affect millions of households in the metro.

Johannesburg Water’s operations manager, Logan Munsamy, has, however, dismissed allegations that the utility has no plans to improve its infrastructure.

“We’ve got, as a city, some brilliant plans. We’ve always had plans - from town planning, water, electricity, and roads. The problem we sit with is resourcing those plans to get them to be constructed and to get them to be realised.”

He said most of the infrastructure has already been upgraded, but in areas like the inner city of Johannesburg, ageing infrastructure remains a problem.