News24 | Commando system failure leaves Joburgers high and dry

• The City of Johannesburg’s Commando water system is in crisis, leaving residents in several suburbs without water for many days at a time.
• The situation has become so bad that some residents are considering leaving their neighbourhoods.
• The Hurst Hill 2 reservoir requires urgent repairs and should have been fixed by now, but the City has run out of money to pay the contractor who has walked off site several times.

Power failure upon power failure has left Johannesburg’s Commando water system struggling to recover, with no water reported in Greenside, Emmarentia, Coronationville, Westbury, Auckland Park, Mayfair, Parktown West and Melville on Tuesday morning.

On Monday morning, frustrated Melville residents took to the streets again to protest weeks of intermittent to no water in their suburb. They are not alone, as various residents served by the Commando system are fed up.

A WhatsApp post from a resident in Coronationville sums up the general feeling of anger and frustration: “When will this water just stay on for once? Why struggle for a basic need, it’s so tiring.”

What ties these suburbs together is their reliance on the Hurst Hill 2 water supply system, which has been dysfunctional for the best part of the year.

On top of that, a power failure at the Eikenhof pump station, a broken valve at Crosby, a massive power failure at the Vereeniging Rand Water plant on Sunday, and another outage on Monday have severely affected the Commando system, leaving these suburbs without a reliable water supply for weeks now.

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According to Johannesburg Water’s own media releases, the Commando system will take up to two weeks to recover.

Melville protest convenor Josh Nel said: “For many of us, it’s been over a week now without any water. The last month has been a constant on-and-off supply. There’s no proper communication about what’s actually going on.

“In that time, a valve had to be replaced, taking out the whole Hurst Hill system. While that was still being sorted, a massive leak on Beyers Naudé forced another shutdown. Then, a power outage hit pumping at the Rand Water Eikenhof station. It’s one failure after another, and we’re the ones paying for it every time.”

Handwritten notes in the men’s bathroom at Melville’s Xai Xai restaurant on Friday evening warned customers not to defecate as there was no water in the establishment.

Up the road in Auckland Park, resident Barry du Plessis has made spreadsheets of his water and power interruptions for the past two months. He notes every day when he has gone without municipal services for longer than six hours.

For August and September, there were only two days when there was power, water and rubbish collection.

Nel said:

I have lived in Melville on and off since 1976 [in 7th Avenue], bought the current home in Auckland Park in 1994 and stayed here since then.

“This year is the worst I have ever seen. It is literally not survivable without your own water infrastructure [like a water tank and pump] on the property. Unless you’re prepared to get up at 02:00 every morning to fill all the water bottles to carry you through the day,” he said.

Parktown West residents have compiled a daily poll of their water issues.

From 12 December 2025 to 19 March 19 2026, they had no water for 57 days.

From 20 March 2026 to 11 September this year, there were 157 days of low pressure to zero water.

Lieza Louw, who became the face of protests earlier this year when she washed her hair on Main Street, was back again.

“I have lived in Joburg since 1979. I love this city. It is an Afro-cosmopolitan city. Now it has imploded, it has collapsed. What is going on? Eight months ago, we had no water. I washed my hair here in the middle of the road, and apparently, even the president saw it. Has he done anything? No, he has done nothing,” she said.

Melville resident Mickey Mashego wants the authorities to answer for the water issues.

He said:

This is a gross human rights violation that demands urgent attention. Voting is simply not enough anymore; we need politicians and officials standing in front of us explaining this.

“What worries me is that everyone tries to quantify this in numbers, but what is happening to our mental health? How can we expect people to be productive and happy when they don’t know what their water situation is going to be?” he said.

In Greenside, where they go without water for at least 10 days every month, resident Angela Deutschmann, who has lived there for 15 years, says she and her family are leaving the area.

“In a city with the resources Johannesburg has, it is unacceptable that a service like water is interrupted. We are at the point where we are moving out of the area to someplace with an alternative water source. We can’t live here anymore,” she said.

Deutschmann and her family are lucky to have friends who they pay to do their laundry, neighbours with boreholes who help when the water is out, and neighbours whose swimming pool water they can use to flush toilets.

“The mosques in the area have been really amazing, letting us get water from their boreholes, so we cart 5-litre bottles of water when we need them. Our municipal bills arrive on time, and yet there is never a reduction in our water costs,” she said.

On Tuesday morning, the Commando system’s Crosby reservoir (36%), Brixton reservoir (32%) and Brixton tower (1%) were listed as critical on Johannesburg Water’s daily reservoir status report.

Water tankers were dispatched to Coronationville, Claremont, Westbury, Melville, the Rahima Moosa Hospital and Mayfair.

Residents in Melville and surrounding suburbs continue to voice their frustration over ongoing water outages in Melville, Greenside, Emmerentia and Aucklandpark. Motorists passing the protest showed their support by hooting as residents took their concerns to the streets.… pic.twitter.com/BMJWtgtCgA

— Our City News (@OurCityNews) September 14, 2026

The Commando system comprises the Crosby reservoir, Brixton reservoir, Brixton tower and the Hurst Hill 1 and 2 reservoirs. Both the Hurst Hill reservoirs are leaking and are on the list for urgent repairs.

At the end of last year, Johannesburg Water said a contractor had been appointed to refurbish the Hurst Hill 2 reservoir and that the refurbishment would be completed in May 2026. This date has now been pushed out to sometime next year, given that Johannesburg Water does not have adequate money to pay the contractor, and the contractor has walked off the project several times.

The renewal of Hurst Hill 2 reservoir for R32 million includes internal repairs and lining of the 23Ml reservoir, installation of an in-situ lining for a 600mm-diameter bypass pipeline, and replacement of associated valves and fittings.

This story was produced by Our City News, a non-profit newsroom serving the people of Johannesburg.