Armed police opened fire on poor Johannesburg residents demanding water, exposing how far South Africa has strayed from Nelson Mandela’s vision, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.
Nelson Mandela must be turning in his grave.
In Johannesburg this week, poor residents demanding water were met not with help — but with rubber bullets.
Armed police fired at protesters in Westbury, where taps have been dry for eight years. The pipes are broken and never fixed. Instead of sending engineers or city officials, the government responded with force.
An 81-year-old man was shot while fetching water for his sick wife. A child was shot in the face. These are not criminals. They are desperate people who have had enough.
Mandela fought for 27 years in prison for a country where the government listens to the people. But that dream has turned into a nightmare.
The “caring government” of the African National Congress now treats service delivery protests as acts of war. Across Gauteng, police open fire on residents protesting water and electricity cuts.
The only crowd control measure left seems to be violence.
This is not leadership. This is fear. And it shows just how far the ANC has fallen from the people.
In Johannesburg, voters have been trying to get rid of the ANC for more than a decade. In the last local government elections, over 60% of voters backed opposition parties. The Democratic Alliance’s Dr Mpho Phalatse became mayor — until opposition parties turned on her and helped the ANC retake power.
That backroom betrayal put Al Jama-ah, a party with just 0.9% of the vote, in charge of the R85-billion city. Two Al Jama-ah mayors have come and gone, while the ANC’s Dada Morero quietly controlled the city’s finances as a member of the mayoral committee.
Now Morero is mayor — despite the ANC getting just 34% of the vote.
He is deeply unpopular. Many blame him for taking foreign loans that left the city on the edge of financial collapse. Now, in the middle of a water crisis, Morero has vanished from public view. He is not talking to the residents. He is not facing the protests.
And he’s not fixing the water.
When residents are ignored, they protest. When they protest, the government shoots at them. That is not democracy. That is not what Mandela stood for.
The crisis is about more than water. It’s about the total collapse of local government. Cities like Johannesburg and Tshwane are unable to manage the pressure from growing populations, ageing infrastructure and poor planning.
Water outages are no longer just an inconvenience. They are a public health risk.
The threat of a cholera outbreak hangs over the city, made worse by decaying pipes and sewage leaks. It’s the kind of crisis that should never happen in a major city.
But it’s also big business.
The longer the taps stay dry, the more money water tanker companies make. The City of Johannesburg has handed out a R263-million contract to two companies — Builtpro Construction and Nutinox — to supply water by truck over the next three years.
Seventy tankers will deliver over two million kilolitres of water to communities across the city. That includes Randburg, Midrand, Marlboro, Soweto, Ennerdale and central Johannesburg.
At the current rate, the city will spend over R150 million every month on water tankers. That’s nearly R2 billion a year — money being poured into a temporary fix instead of real solutions.
Meanwhile, R800 million has been allocated to upgrade water systems in Brixton and Crosby. But the full cost to fix the metro’s water infrastructure is estimated at R32 billion. Add roads, electricity and housing, and Johannesburg’s total backlog is over R200 billion.
This is not just about broken pipes — it’s about broken leadership.
Even President Cyril Ramaphosa has admitted that municipalities are failing because ANC cadres with no qualifications have been deployed to run them. The result is plain to see: chaos in cities and collapsed services in rural towns.
To fix Johannesburg, the city needs a mayor who understands how to manage money, fix infrastructure and respect the people.
That’s why there’s growing interest in Helen Zille, the former Cape Town mayor, as a possible Democratic Alliance candidate in 2026. She turned Cape Town around without looting the treasury or shooting at residents.
That sounds far more like the government Mandela once dreamed of — a government that serves, not shoots.
For the people of Johannesburg, that dream feels further away than ever.
But they’re still marching for it.
Even when it gets them shot.
Pictured above: Police in riot gear face off with protesting residents.
Image source: Palesa Matlala
