Phumula Mqhashi in Lenasia South residents are protesting over water interruptions in the area and have barricaded major roads who also claim water trucks have not been made available to the community. 

WE ARE HUMAN

An angry resident Martha Mokoena said they last had water about two weeks ago. She claimed that Rand Water officials came and cut off their water supply and they haven't had water.

"We are suffering a great deal, we don't have water or electricity. Can they at least provide us with water trucks instead of treating us like we don't exist,"she said.

She added that their major frustration is that children are no longer going to school, so preparing food for them is almost impossible without water and electricity.

"Government must not treat us like we are crazy. We've been waiting for RDP houses for over two decades and there's been no progress. We know that we've placed ourselves here but this land was vacant and I believe many of the people that are here were tired of renting hence the decision to move to this vacant land and make homes for our children," she said.

IT?S OUR BASIC RIGHT

The residents added that water and basic sanitation are their human right but at this point they feel less human.

"There are 1700 shacks in this area with 22 sections yet they've only placed a few jojo tanks. We don't even want water from the tanks it's not clean and sometimes we have diarrhoea," said another resident who wanted to be identified as Sibusiso.

"The entity wishes to reiterate that it will not be connecting the illegal connection at the Phumla Mqashi informal settlement in Lenasia south.The intervention also marks a significant step forward in reducing the entity's non-revenue water (NRW), the percentage of water supplied but not billed to customers.

This ongoing challenge, which Johannesburg Water has worked tirelessly to address over the years, is seeing encouraging progress due to these operational adjustments and various other water demand management projects which aim to reduce physical losses and improve billing and revenue collection for the entity," said Rand Water.