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Picket for Water Budget Increase During Joburg Council Meeting

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Picket for Water Budget Increase During Joburg Council Meeting:

Activists from WaterCAN picketed outside the Joburg Council meeting on Thursday calling for an increase in the water budget.

Dozens of people led by WaterCAN lined some streets in the city centre with placards in Johannesburg on Thursday, calling for the Joburg Water capital budget to be doubled to R3-billion for 2024/25 and another R3-billion in 2025/26.

This happened as the City of Johannesburg Council was debating the budget on 27 February. WaterCAN is an initiative by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA).

The City has been facing a water crisis that has led to many protests across the municipality. Some communities have no access to water and are relying on water trucks.

WaterCAN’s Ferrial Adam said there were 42 leaking reservoirs that needed urgent repairs. “They have identified 20 that they are going to fix but they haven’t started because there is no budget to fix it,” Adams said.

Adams said that only fixing 14km a year of the 12,000km pipeline was not enough.

She said they handed over a petition to the Speaker in late January calling for the water budget to be increased from R1.2-billion to R3-billion, which they wanted to be tabled during the council meeting on Thursday.

Adams welcomed the construction of more reservoirs in the metro but said this was not enough. Some areas supplied by Hursthill Reservoirs such as Westbury and Crosby remain without water.

Civic Action for Democracy and Equality spokesperson Rehad Desai said they also supported the ring-fencing of revenue but raised concern that it would take too long for the water crisis to be resolved.

“We still have a massive backlog. It would take 10 years to fix the water system now because of the Lesotho Highlands project delay,” he said.

He further said the amount of water bought by Joburg Water is not enough.

“The water consumption is higher than what the City is able to supply. It’s happening in all metros in Gauteng. That’s why we are mobilising everywhere.”

“Today is just a buildup … everybody has an interest in ensuring that water household consumption is prioritised,” he said.

The City of Joburg could not be reached for the comment at the time of publication.

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Museum Africa: Art Collection

The museum’s collection is staggering, housing approximately 850,000 objects that range from the prehistoric to the contemporary. It is one of the few institutions that attempts to tell the story of Southern Africa from the Stone Age to the nuclear age. The “Johannesburg Transformations” exhibition is the museum’s centerpiece, dragging the visitor through the chaotic evolution of the city. It doesn’t shy away from the grime; it features detailed reconstructions of “shack life,” the illegal “shebeens” (speakeasies) of the 1950s, and the vibrant but overcrowded “backyard rooms” that defined the black urban experience during Apartheid. One of its most sobering permanent displays is the “Tried for Treason” exhibit, which meticulously documents the 1956 Treason Trial. Visitors can see the portraits of all 156 accused—including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Albertina Sisulu—and read the “little red books” placed beneath each photo, where the public is invited to write their own reflections and facts about these liberation icons.

Deep within the museum’s labyrinthine halls, you’ll find specialized branches that are world-class in their own right. The Bensusan Museum of Photography sits on the top floor, acting as a shrine to the visual history of the continent. It contains everything from rare 19th-century daguerreotypes to the legendary photojournalism of the Drum magazine era. Meanwhile, the Geology Museum houses over 17,000 specimens, including a definitive collection of the rocks and minerals that made Johannesburg possible. It is a place where you can see the actual gold-bearing conglomerate reefs of the Witwatersrand up close, stripped of their commercial value and presented as scientific wonders.