without water in Johannesburg

'For all that time Johannesburg Water brushed off the community and said it was because of high-lying areas. We have proven geography is not the issue'

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nity ... where we mapped out the area and then mapped out the flats that don’t have water, and then we could isolate actually where issues were.

“We did get Joburg Water in at one point to help us and they found it was a closed valve — when they opened that valve they got water. So it has come down to a few blocks ... We've been able to now take pressure tests and we can see that it’s one or two valves that’s the issue.”

Adam said the slow restoration was caused by officials not listening to the experience of residents.

“When I first met the group, they knew what the problem was. They could pinpoint exactly what was going on. All we did was get an engineer to verify what they were saying. For all that time Johannesburg Water just brushed off the community and said it was because of high-lying areas. We have proven that the geography is not the issue — it’s the poor infrastructure,” she said.

‘The toll on residents is more than physical. Abrahams recalled collapsing at work last year from stress and exhaustion. “We don’t get sleep here — you sleep maybe two hours a night because you're checking on water. The pressure is so low that filling four 25-litre buckets takes two and a half hours.”