'We want dignity': Johannesburg protests continue despite ministerial intervention

While President Cyril Ramaphosa has deployed ministers to address the crisis, some residents say they have lost faith in government interventions.

Ramaphosa has instructed the ministers of Water and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) to remain in Johannesburg to address the crisis, rather than attend the State of the Nation Address in Cape Town. The ministers are conducting oversight visits to various reservoirs.

Despite this, protests in different parts of Gauteng are continuing. Earlier on Thursday, residents in the south of Johannesburg took to the streets after facing a four-day water outage.

Resident Zubair Patel stated:

“We’re tired of it. We don’t want trucks, we want the dignity that we pay for in our rates and taxes and that means water out of the taps.”

Patel said the government has communicated too many reasons for the outage instead of providing water.

“The information that we are being fed just doesn’t add up… Is this a load-shedding bolt in the works again? Nothing makes sense. We want water coming out of our taps.”

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission is set to issue a letter to the Disaster Management Centre.

READ: Ramaphosa orders ministers to skip SONA for Gauteng water crisis