The Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) mayoral candidate for Johannesburg Helen Zille has filed court papers in the South Gauteng High Court arguing that the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) and Johannesburg Water failed to implement the Water Turnaround Strategy, resulting in a possible violation of constitutional rights.

The DA’s court papers, also directed at CoJ Mayor Dada Morero, give the respondents 10 days to respond to what the DA says is a worsening water crisis.

“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,” Zille said.

She argued that the Water Turnaround Strategy, which was adopted by Council in 2023, could have stabilised and rehabilitated the city’s water infrastructure, as it identified crucial interventions and had the support of Treasury.

She blamed Morero’s administration for delaying the implementation of the strategy and the party’s court papers claimed that the municipality and Johannesburg Water did not fulfil their constitutional and legal obligations to Johannesburg residents.

“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,” Zille said.