EDITORIAL: The water crisis has arrived

As some residents of Johannesburg embark on their 10th day without water, it is worth noting that the anticipated water crisis is no longer imminent but has arrived with all the privation that naturally follows. It joins the long and ignominious list of prosperity-destroying catastrophes we are enduring in energy, logistics and security.

But water is fundamental. It is life, it is health and it is dignity. Without it, there is little to look forward to but filth, disease and misery.

Long in the making after a decades of infrastructure neglect and a decade of outright looting under the Zuma administration, it is a matter for the bookies to work out how long it will be until somebody establishes a water crisis committee in the presidency to join Necom, the crime and corruption workstream, and the national logistics crisis committee.

A water crisis in Gauteng is bad for everyone except property owners in the Western Cape. Contributing 35% of the country’s GDP, the health of the province is a critical factor in our economy. While knowledge economy workers and some services companies bring skills, jobs and capital to the Mother City, the simplest solution to this appallingly wasteful allocation of resources is to fix the water infrastructure in Gauteng.

That is easy to write, but as with all the crumbling edifices of the state, fixing what exists but is broken and then expanding it to accommodate our growing population and expanding cities is a quelling prospect for the most honest and well-resourced civil servant.

Gauteng’s water woes present a clear danger to the people of its cities and the SA economy at large, and the crisis needs the most urgent attention.