In its business plan for 2026/27, which accompanies the various draft budgets and tariffs for the next financial year, Johannesburg Water is uncharacteristically blunt about the situation it finds itself in.
It says the city’s “water and sanitation service in [sic] is experiencing serious challenges and is not sustainable”.
It explains: “Long-term under-investment, weakening financial performance and declining services have put CoJ’s [City of Johannesburg’s water and sanitation services into] a compromised position.”
It highlights a “long-term and ongoing decline in service performance” – and the numbers are truly astonishing.
Non-revenue water
Stunningly, in the last 18 years, the percentage of so-called “non-revenue water”– which is water that is produced and supplied but does not generate revenue because of various losses throughout the distribution system through leaks, bursts, inaccurate metering and theft – has increased from 29.4% (2007) to 44.8% (2025).
This means practically half of the potable water supplied by the city is never billed for.
Of this, physical losses were 24.8%, unbilled authorised consumption (basically faulty metering) was 11.7% and commercial losses 9.7%.
The commercial losses include so-called “deemed customers”, which the city says is unique to Joburg.
There are currently 99 000 customers within this category in Soweto, Orange Farm and Alexandra, and they are being billed at a flat rate of 20, 10 or six kilolitres (kl). However, Joburg Water says “investigations have indicated that the actual consumption of these deemed customers ranges between 50 kl and 60 kl”.
It is busy converting these to metered area, but progress is slow.
Bizarrely, as part of the strategic shifts in its “Turnaround Strategy 2024”, it reckons through establishing “capacity for effective implementation” it will reduce non-water revenue to 30% in 2028.
This is practically impossible. – moneyweb
