JOHANNESBURG, Gauteng — The escalating Johannesburg water crisis has forced residents in the city’s most vulnerable communities to rely on extreme rationing just to meet their daily needs. According to a new six-part documentary series titled *Surviving on Four Buckets*, **chronic water insecurity in Johannesburg’s informal settlements** has reached a critical point, transforming temporary relief measures into a permanent, institutionalized way of life.
Produced by the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI), the project investigates the everyday realities of residents in Mountain City and Phumla Mqashi. Mahlatse Rampedi, a researcher at PARI, explains that the striking title “Surviving on Four Buckets” is derived from writing found plastered across water tanks in Mountain City. The phrase reflects the community’s self-organized rationing system, designed to ensure that the scarce water supply is distributed evenly among households.
The Institutionalization of Temporary Fixes
While water truck and tank relief systems were initially intended as short-term interventions, Rampedi notes they have become a permanent feature of urban water provision. Mountain City has never had access to piped water, while Phumla Mqashi lost its supply around 2017.
This prolonged reliance on temporary infrastructure has sparked growing frustration, leading to recent service delivery protests in areas like Ratanda in Heidelberg. There, residents are actively demanding permanent tap water rather than continuous water tanker deliveries. Rampedi notes that while communities often try to self-organize and solve problems by pooling resources to add to water infrastructure, severe scarcity frequently leaves protesting as the only way to be heard by the state.
The Disproportionate Human Toll
The physical and emotional labor of securing water falls disproportionately on women, girls, the elderly, people with disabilities, and children. Rampedi highlights that women are frequently the ones managing the day-to-day logistics, waiting at tankers, carrying containers, and deciding how the limited supply will be used for cooking, cleaning, and childcare.
The physical toll is immense. In Phumla Mqashi, when tanker deliveries fail, residents are forced to walk up to two kilometers across the Golden Highway in Lenasia to collect water from petrol stations and local mosques. In the hilly, rocky terrain of Mountain City, where wheelbarrows cannot be used, fetching a single bucket can take 30 to 45 minutes.
This grueling routine frequently causes children to arrive late for school or attend without basic hygiene supplies. Furthermore, the constant uncertainty of whether tankers will arrive causes severe emotional stress, disrupting family relationships, childcare, and residents’ sense of security.
A Failure of Governance
When examining the root causes of the crisis, Rampedi argues that while supply and maintenance are factors, the core issue is a failure of governance. The lack of permanent infrastructure and irregular delivery schedules have forced communities to take matters into their own hands.
Residents frequently pool resources to purchase communal tanks and approach Johannesburg Water to service them. However, Rampedi points out that these community-led alternatives lack formal regulations or policies, representing a massive missed opportunity for collaborative state-community development. The issue is not merely a technical problem of needing more water, but a failure in state planning, infrastructure maintenance, and communication with communities regarding their right to water.
The Hidden Financial Costs
Perhaps the most alarming finding of the research is the hidden financial burden placed on the poorest households. While municipal water tariffs are relatively low—costing just under R30 per kiloliter (about 29 cents per liter)—the actual cost of accessing water is exponentially higher.
Residents must continually replace basic equipment, including buckets (R30 to R40), large drums (R120), wheelbarrows (R1,300), and 2,500-liter home tanks (R2,700). These items often need to be replaced every six months.
Furthermore, an informal water market has emerged within these settlements. Residents who cannot fetch water themselves must pay others to do it, or buy directly from informal vendors. Rampedi reveals that the average cost in this informal market is R10 per liter, equating to R500 per kiloliter. This represents a staggering markup of more than 1,500% compared to standard municipal rates.
“The most vulnerable in this particular case are the ones that pay pretty much the largest cost,” Rampedi explains, noting that the intricate expenses of buckets, labor, and purchased water remain largely unacknowledged. For communities like Phumla Mqashi and Mountain City, survival is measured in buckets, and the wait for a sustainable, permanent solution continues.
