Frustrated Chatsworth residents took to the streets on Thursday, blocking several roads in protest against a severe and protracted water shortage that has left the community without a reliable supply for three months.
Protesters issued a urgent plea for the Ethekwini municipality and national government to personally visit the area and witness what they describe as “inhumane” living conditions. They claim their repeated appeals to local councilors have gone entirely unanswered, leaving them feeling abandoned.
The community’s desperation was further highlighted by an account of a recent house fire that firefighters could not fully contain due to the complete lack of water in the area, exacerbating fears over public safety. Residents also reported that the water tankers provided by the municipality arrive only in the afternoons, a time when many are at work, making it impossible to collect water for basic household chores.
In response to the growing national crisis over water provision, the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Pemmy Majodina, addressed the role of water boards and municipalities. Minister Majodina stated that water boards are successfully providing bulk water supply to municipalities and argued that the core issue lies with local infrastructure and reticulation.
He announced a new intervention strategy, stating, “There’s no way that you can give municipality that money any longer.” Instead, the national department will deploy technical experts from the water boards to assist municipalities directly, citing a failure by many local governments to complete funded infrastructure projects over the last decade. Minister Majodina acknowledged that municipalities inherited decaying infrastructure and stated the national government would now step in to help manage and fund essential upgrades.
Offering analysis on the systemic governance failure, Governance Expert Dr. Sam Koma argued that the ongoing crisis signals a need for a constitutional review. He proposed that the national government should consider amending the constitution to take over the direct provision of water, citing a lack of capacity and capability at the municipal level.
“The national government has the luxury of capacity and also availability of… infrastructure and the skilled engineers,” Dr. Koma stated. He criticized the focus on building new infrastructure while neglecting the maintenance of existing systems, which has led to widespread service delivery collapse.
Dr. Koma also contextualized the Chatsworth protest as part of a broader national failure, pointing to similar recent tensions in communities like Westbury, Johannesburg. He emphasized that solutions require not just technical fixes but also procedural fairness and meaningful engagement between municipalities and the residents they serve.
The situation in Chatsworth underscores a critical challenge to local governance and highlights the escalating frustration of communities across South Africa facing persistent water outages.
