Recent water outages in Johannesburg are not just a municipal service delivery issue or infrastructural issue, as claimed but a deep systemic issue deeply rooted in the legacy of apartheid.
During apartheid, urban planning deliberately prioritised white suburbs with robust infrastructure while Black townships received minimal investment. After 1994, the democratic government inherited these inequities.
Many townships and informal settlements continue to rely on poorly maintained systems, originally designed without long-term growth in mind. The result is the devastating water crisis Johannesburg faces today.
In Melville, a middle-class suburb in Johannesburg, residents endured 24 days without running water, prompting a public briefing by Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero and Johannesburg Water managing director Ntshavheni Mukwevho.
Officials attributed the disruption to high demand and aging infrastructure, revealing an erosion of state capacity and social trust.
This signals the erosion of state capacity and social trust, where the routine failure of basic infrastructure normalises precarity and deepens inequality in post-apartheid urban life.
The National Water Act
Access to water was central to the democratic promise made in the National Water Act (NWA) of 1998.
The NWA centralises authority over water in the national government because it declares water as a public resource that should be held in trust by the state, rather than private property.
The division of water into different categories, such as public water and private water, normal flow and surplus water, which existed under the 1956 Water Act, was done away with. All water thereafter had the same status in law.
This means that the privatisation of water is prohibited and all South African citizens have equal water rights.
Moreover, the NWA gives the Minister of Water and Sanitation the power to regulate how water is allocated, used and protected. It requires users to obtain licenses for significant water use, allows the state to set limits and permits the withdrawal or suspension of rights if conditions are not met.
For example, on Thursday, 19 February 2026, the minister of Water and Sanitation Pemmy Majodina announced that additional measures have been implemented to curb Johannesburg’s water crisis, including approval of Level 2 water restrictions in high-use areas, controlled throttling of water supplies overnight and a temporary abstraction licence allowing an additional 200 million cubic metres per annum to be allocated to Rand Water.
However, in her statement, she said that this is not a long-term solution to the water supply challenges being experienced in Gauteng, as it is just a temporary measure to assist the municipal reservoir levels to recover.
As a result, Johannesburg residents continue to endure the pain of the water crisis, with the women being the most vulnerable group.
Experiences of water crisis in Johannesburg
Melville residents depended on community tankers that supplied 15 000 litres for approximately 1 600 households, which translates to roughly 50 litres per household per day. For larger families, that amount barely covers drinking, cooking and basic washing, let alone broader household needs.
At the same time, townships such as Meadowlands, Orlando East, and Pimville faced similar outages under harsher conditions that are undignified and unbearable. In many parts of Soweto, there are no community tankers stationed within easy reach.
Soweto residents depend on intermittent deliveries from Johannesburg Water. When tankers do not arrive, people travel to other areas in search of water. For families with young children, the burden is acute.
A female Meadowlands resident, Thandi Zulu, described waking each morning uncertain whether there would be water, unable to cook and wash, and beginning the workday already exhausted.
Women at the epicentre of Johannesburg’s water crisis
Women suffer more from the water outages in Johannesburg compared to their counterparts, due to the gender inequalities that remain common in many households.
Women are usually responsible for cooking, cleaning, childcare and caring for sick family members. When taps run dry, they are the ones who must queue for water and walk long distances to collect it.
The water crisis exacerbates existing gender inequalities. Despite gains in labour market participation, women remain underrepresented in management positions and face wage gaps, which makes it more difficult for them to make enough money to take care of their financial and family needs.
To tackle this issue, women must “make a plan” for survival by running small businesses such as selling vegetables, operating salons or providing street food, to sustain themselves and their families.
However, prolonged water outages disrupt these enterprises. Salons require water for washing and hair treatments; street food vendors depend on water for cooking and hygiene. Without it, women lose clients or incur extra costs, compounding financial insecurity.
These unique experiences of women during the water crisis in Johannesburg raise urgent questions about South Africa’s position in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 5, which calls for gender equality that can be understood as the enjoyment of equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities for men and women, boys and girls.
SDG 5 also promotes equal access to economic resources and productive employment. Prolonged water outages in Johannesburg reduce women’s economic independence and widen income gaps
South Africa faces severe gender inequalities due to but not limited to, “plans and policies” that have not been gender responsive by the government, which means that
the government is failing to recognize the gender roles that women and men can play and how to implement policies that can directly empower women.
Moreover, beyond business, women and girls need water for washing their bodies, cleaning reusable sanitary products and maintaining basic hygiene. When water is scarce, managing menstruation becomes difficult and sometimes unsafe.
This can lead to infections, discomfort and emotional stress.
In Johannesburg, where water outages often affect informal settlements and townships, girls may miss school while women miss work during their periods because there is not enough water in homes, work and school toilets.
This undermines the government’s efforts to achieve SDG 5, which includes ensuring equal access to education and ending discrimination against women and girls.
In South Africa, there are high cases of GBV and human trafficking. Long walks to water points or crowded collection sites, particularly at night, increase vulnerability to harassment or violence against women, demonstrating that when infrastructure fails, risk increases.
Moreover, women spend a lot of hours securing water, which limits their ability to engage in community leadership, civic spaces, or political processes, which is against SDG 5, which emphasises women’s full and effective participation in decision-making.
The water crisis in Johannesburg does not create inequality from scratch. It intensifies patterns that are already embedded in the city’s social and spatial structure.
Women, already tasked with domestic labour, informal entrepreneurship and caregiving, bear the brunt of service failures.
Addressing water insecurity is therefore not merely a technical or municipal challenge but a matter of social justice and gender equality. Ensuring sustainable access to water is essential not only for health and livelihoods but also for advancing South Africa’s constitutional promise of equality and its commitment to SDG 5.
Solomon Musonza is an MA Sociology candidate at the University of Johannesburg.
The division of water into different categories, such as public water and private water, normal flow and surplus water, which existed under the 1956 Water Act, was done away with. All water thereafter had the same status in law. This means that the privatisation of water is prohibited and all South African citizens have equal water rights