194 Joburg intersections vandalised

City of Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero says vandalism of infrastructure remains one of the city’s biggest challenges.

On Wednesday, the mayor updated residents on how to resolve the city’s many challenges.

Water challenges in Joburg

Among the challenges is water infrastructure, which the mayor said is being attended to.

“We can indicate that, with the engagement with the national water department, it has become clear that there is no shortage of water. The challenges we have are infrastructure-related due to leaks,” said Morero.

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“The CoJ, through the Joburg Water, has identified the leaks and installed [leak] noise loggers across Randburg and Roodepoort, around 125 of them. We will install an additional 400 by June 2025. Joburg Water is also focusing on pressure management to reduce water loss and ensure the efficient distribution of water throughout the city.

“As of December 2024, about 12 pressure-reducing valves were fitted with smart controllers, with 27 already installed.”

For informal settlements, Joburg Water will continue to provide stationary and roaming water tankers to ensure residents have access to water.

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“However, the city will not tolerate lawlessness and will intensify disconnections of illegal connections throughout the city.”

In November last year, the Department of Water and Sanitation said about 46% of the water provided to the City of Johannesburg is lost through leaks and illegal connections.

Morero on traffic lights

For most intersections in the city, the traffic lights are either out of service or not there. According to the mayor, this is due to vandalism.

The Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) oversees around 2 023 signalised intersections across the city, of which 251 belong to the Gauteng province.

“The city faces significant challenges in maintaining these intersections due to vandalism and theft. 194 intersections throughout Joburg have been affected by vandalism, and 60 provincial intersections have been vandalised and require reconstruction,” said Morero.

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He said the JRA will fix 17 provincial intersections by the end of March. The rest will be fixed according to budget allocations.

“The JRA are focusing on intersections along key economic nodes and major roads such as Malibongwe, Witkoppen, Winnie Mandela, Ontdekkers and Hendrick Potgieter,” said Morero.

“As of 4 March, 99 intersections have been impacted by power outages, with 50 affected by City Power and 49 from Eskom. JRA is working with both entities to resolve these issues. The theft of copper complicates the effort to restore power to traffic signals.”

The mayor said progress is being made in resolving the most problematic major intersections, and 35 of them have been repaired.

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Potholes are another issue plaguing the city, and the rain has exacerbated the situation, said Morero.

“The intensity of the rain over the last three weeks has slowed down our interventions of fixing potholes. We have built our in-house production capacity through our asphalt plant to fast-track the fixing and maintenance of potholes.”