Johannesburg’s water crisis angers voters while driving rich off-grid
Wealthier inhabitants of the commercial capital are drilling boreholes to bypass the municipality, starving it of funds needed to fix the mess.
JOHANNESBURG - Johannesburg residents are growing increasingly angry over the city's chronic water crisis, which has left them with dwindling supplies and the option to seek alternative, off-grid solutions. The metropolis is losing over a third of its water supply, or approximately 655 million liters daily, through broken pipes.
This has resulted in a daily struggle for tap water, with Thandani Masangu, a 17-year-old student, citing the ordeal of spending three hours carting empty containers through his dilapidated Hillbrow neighborhood, where water has been absent for more than three years. The situation has driven some affluent residents to abandon the city's public water system in favor of private, off-grid water sources.
Written by urgent.news from Japan Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
