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The Democratic Alliance has formally filed court papers in the South Gauteng High Court against Johannesburg Water, the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, and Executive Mayor Dada Morero over the catastrophic mismanagement of the City’s worsening water crisis and their continued failure to implement the Water Turnaround Strategy adopted by Council in 2023.  

Following the DA’s filing of the court papers in this matter, the City and the Mayor have 10 court days to respond to the application.

This legal action follows years of accelerated infrastructure collapse, lack of maintenance, chronic water outages, and the failure of the ANC-led administration to act with the urgency required to protect residents and businesses.

The court application makes it clear that the crisis facing Johannesburg is not the result of an unavoidable disaster, but rather the direct consequence of political failure, poor governance, and deliberate inaction by the Mayor and his Mayoral Committee and the administration.  

The 2023 Johannesburg Water Turnaround Strategy provided a clear and credible roadmap to stabilise and rehabilitate the city’s water infrastructure. The strategy identified critical interventions needed to restore operational efficiency, reduce water losses, improve maintenance, and secure reliable water supply to residents. It has the support of the National Treasury.  Yet, under Mayor Morero’s administration, implementation has stalled while residents continue to suffer.

The DA’s court papers argue that the City and Johannesburg Water has failed in their constitutional and legal obligations to residents by not taking adequate and reasonable steps to address the ongoing crisis and implement the approved recovery measures.  

The DA is determined to ensure that those responsible for this crisis are held accountable and that urgent action is taken to fix Johannesburg’s broken water system before even greater damage is done.

Issued by DA Johannesburg Mayoral Candidate Helen Zille