26 June 2026
A water tanker in Brixton, Johannesburg. Photo: Seth Thorne
Johannesburg is seeing increased prolonged water outages, with tankers contracted to supply impacted residents.
Residents and councillors told us they often don’t know when tankers will arrive, where they will be stationed, or how long they will remain.
Joburg Water acknowledges concerns raised, committing the entity to improving coordination, communication and visibility of tanker deployments.
“Every month, we do not have water for days on end,” said Brixton resident and mother of three, Annalie Jacobs.
“We have no clue when the water tankers will come, where they will be, and how long they will be there.”
Jacobs said she cannot afford to spend hours waiting for a tanker to appear. “I have to buy water from the shops.”
This is not an isolated incident in Johannesburg.
Many residents we spoke to bear the brunt of prolonged outages. They need water tankers to provide an emergency supply, so that they can drink, bathe and do other essential activities.
University student Thandeka Maotwe said that her NSFAS allowance is barely enough to cover her essential living costs. She too must buy water bottles from the supermarket, as Braamfontein frequently has water outages and she “never knows when tankers will come”.
Municipal manager Floyd Brink told the Human Rights Commission that the City relies on a fleet of about 60 water tankers a day to provide emergency drinking water to residents mainly through third-party contractors.
To test residents’ complaints, we joined multiple official communication groups where Joburg Water, ward councillors, and residents share tanker locations during outages.
One of the groups, the Water Crisis Committee (WCC), was formed in September 2023. Its aim is to hold the City and Joburg Water accountable following “extended outage[s]” and a lack of reliable feedback, said the organisation’s head Ingrid Bester.
Over several days, we went to close to 20 locations across Joburg experiencing prolonged water outages, particularly during a bulk water maintenance shutdown.
With usually no notice about the whereabouts of the water tankers from official channels, we went immediately to tanker locations when they were posted on community communication channels. This included Marshalltown, Hillbrow, Yeoville, Braamfontein, Brixton, Newlands, Melville, Coronationville, Westbury and Midrand.
By the time we arrived in most cases (often within a matter of minutes of the first posting), the tankers were usually nowhere to be found.
A consistently accessible tanker we located was the one supplying the Johannesburg High Court precinct in Marshalltown. It fills a rain tank there because the court has frequent water issues. According to the driver, who preferred to not give his name, each truck is packed with a tight daily schedule that they must meet.
Joburg Water spokesperson Nombuso Shabalala said the company acknowledges the concerns. She said Joburg Water will improve coordination and visibility of tanker deployments.
She noted that there is no fixed timeframe for how long a tanker remains at a location, with multiple trips and rotations during prolonged outages.
She said, “While every effort is made to provide efficient service, operational circumstances may require adjustments to deployment plans”.
Tanker deployments are coordinated through dispatch groups, ward councillors, who identify areas in need and communicate information to residents, and tanker inspectors, who verify outages and determine the number of tankers required.
Updates are provided through customer notices, social media, and informing councillors and community leaders.
However, this is an uphill battle. Ward 74 councillor and DA caucus leader Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku said communication from Joburg Water is inadequate.
She said councillors are usually asked to identify preferred tanker locations, but Joburg Water “does not always place tankers at those sites” and seldom provides schedules indicating “when tankers will arrive, how long they will remain, or whether they will return”.
This has left councillors “chasing information and pleading for updates while residents wait for water”.
Kayser-Echeozonjoku said Joburg Water often ignores councillors’ requests for months while engaging directly with selected residents.
Shabalala acknowledged there is room for improvement. “Joburg Water continuously reviews its communication processes and engagement mechanisms to ensure that residents receive timely and accurate information.”
The City of Johannesburg is facing a water infrastructure crisis, with R10.3-billion of drinking water lost over the last four years.
Joburg Water’s “failure to proactively maintain its water infrastructure” has led to frequent pipe bursts and a deterioration of network reliability, noted the Auditor General in its Consolidated General Report on Local Government Audit Outcomes for 2024/25.
WaterCAN’s Ferrial Adam said this growing reliance on tankers diverts funding from addressing Johannesburg’s estimated R27-billion infrastructure backlog.
While acknowledging tankers are a “last resort” for residents with “no other option,” Bester, from the WCC, says that “providing water by tanker is [not] meeting the constitutional obligation” of providing adequate water.
Ratepayers have paid R650-million over the past five for private tankers, yet how that money has been spent is shrouded in secrecy. Joburg Water has committed to phasing out its reliance on externally hired water tankers.
