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The South African Human Right Commission has confirmed today what residents know: The failing political leaders of Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni are violating our human rights to access clean water.

According to the Human Rights Commission: "The water is there, but the so-called world-class cities have no water."

They have allowed their engineering capacity to evaporate, they have left pipes and pumps to fall apart, they have let reservoirs fail, they have let contaminated water into taps – and in their place they have turned water tankers into a billion-rand business. It cannot go on.

The only hope to end this water crisis is to vote them out of office, on Election Day. Instead of failure, these Metros need leaders with track-records of success and plans to fix the water crisis. The DA welcomes the Human Rights Commission describing DA-run Midvaal’s water management as “sound management” – This is the difference: Water crisis chaos from the ANC-ActionSA-EFF, and “sound management” from the DA.

Water is a human right, because it is the difference between life and death. The failing political leaders of Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni are now risking human life. Yesterday the DA was informed that water-shedding has now started, in Gauteng.

DA calculations indicate that Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni are currently losing approximately one billion litres of treated water every day through physical losses. This is an abject failure of governance.

The DA’s most serious concerns of how human rights are being violated, after this report by the SA Human Rights Commission include:

--- Massive water losses: Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Ekurhuleni are losing billions of litres of clean water. Tshwane is losing 39%, and Johannesburg is losing 44.8% of clean water a year, valued at approximately R2.82 billion. Joburg needs R27 billion to fix what the failing government has broken, and the current response is "insufficient"

--- Excessive expenditure on water tankers instead: Johannesburg, Tshwane and Emfuleni are all guilty. Johannesburg spent R165 million on tankers in 2023/24 alone, and Emfuleni spent R79 million over five years. The DA has already exposed Tshwane's R777-million figure.

--- Failure to prevent unlawful sewage pollution into waterways: Ekurhuleni, and Tshwane are worst offenders. Ekurhuleni admitted to discharging non-compliant effluent into a Rietvlei river. Tshwane's wastewater treatment performance is severely deficient.

More than ever, the choice before residents of Gauteng is to use the Election on Wednesday to end the water crisis chaos in Gauteng’s cities, and choose a different path.

When political parties have shown you that their governments violate human rights, it is time to vote them out. In their place, only the DA has the plan and track-record of success to fix this water crisis.

Together we can address Gauteng’s water crisis, by choosing the DA in this Election.

Issued by Stephen Moore MP - DA Spokesperson on Water and Sanitation