For more than five weeks, large parts of Utrecht have gone without a reliable water supply, exposing ongoing service delivery failures within the Amajuba District Municipality.
According to a member of the Utrecht Residents Forum, who spoke to Newcastillian News, residents in White City, Bensdorp and Khayalethu have endured prolonged and inconsistent water access.
This has, in turn, created ongoing sanitation and public health concerns, with affected communities saying they have not received consistent or effective relief.
The source, who requested anonymity, said attempts to engage municipal officials have yielded little progress.
“Living without running water for over a month is not an exaggeration; it is a daily struggle that disrupts households, compromises hygiene, and impacts the vulnerable, including children and the elderly. We pay for municipal services and deserve both reliable infrastructure and basic professional courtesy,” he stressed.
He added that officials must stop deflecting responsibility, acknowledge the scale of the failure, and provide residents with a clear and accountable timeline for restoring supply.
“Our community cannot survive on empty promises and administrative silence any longer,” the resident said, noting that the disruption began in mid-April.
Since then, residents across White City, Bensdorp and Khayalethu have repeatedly sought clarity on when normal supply will resume, without receiving firm answers.
Despite repeated queries directed to the District Municipality and the then Acting Mayor, Cllr Thembelihle Mthembu, who has since been elected within the District Municipality, the community maintains that its concerns have not been meaningfully addressed.
This has further reinforced perceptions of limited accountability during a prolonged service delivery failure.
Although intermittent supply has been recorded in the affected areas, residents argue that this does not amount to a functional service.
In this context, the source stated that fixed service charges should be waived for affected households, given the Municipality’s prolonged inability to deliver consistent water access. Adding to the growing frustration, the resident further noted that, due to the lack of water tankers, residents were not always able to stock up on water during the day.
In response to queries, the Amajuba District Municipality stated that water supply has been restored to Khayalethu and Bensdorp.
However, its Communications Unit maintained, “The only times we have water supply challenges are when we have burst pipes and power outages, which we communicate with the residents and always ensure such is resolved with urgency.”
At the same time, the Municipality confirmed that White City continues to experience low water pressure during the day, with supply typically returning at night. Addressing the cause of the extended disruption, the Communications Unit stated:
“The main challenge has been our line to White City, which is experiencing low pressure.”
When pressed to provide a firm, date-specific timeline for the restoration of full pressure and uninterrupted supply, the Municipality confirmed that no such timeline is currently available.
“Unfortunately, we cannot provide timelines. The team is still busy with investigations as to what causes the low pressure. The team has exposed the line, checked water leaks, and checked faulty valves along the line,” the Communications Unit said.
It added that a proposed intervention involves connecting a high-pressure line to Mgala to improve supply to White City.
On interim measures, the Municipality stated that one water tanker is dispatched daily, citing the return of supply at night.
However, when questioned on inconsistent tanker delivery, including failures to service sites such as Bensdorp Primary School, the Communications Unit acknowledged;
“The Municipality does not have enough water tankers to supply all the areas.”
In addition, the Municipality identified electricity instability as a limiting factor in maintaining reservoir levels.
“If we can have a reliable electricity supply from the local Municipality to run our plant, that would keep high reservoir levels. Although we have backup generators, they cannot run 24/7,” the Communications Unit stated.
Moreover, the District Municipality further confirmed that 14 pipes have been repaired since the disruption began on 16 April 2026.
It added that work is ongoing to address recurring pipe bursts, alongside plans to appoint a service provider to replace ageing asbestos infrastructure with PVC piping in an effort to stabilise the network.
Taken together, the developments point to a service delivery system under sustained strain, where reactive interventions appear to be outpacing long-term stability measures.
While repair work and infrastructure upgrades have been initiated, the absence of clear timelines and the continued reliance on limited interim measures have left residents navigating uncertainty with no defined end point to the disruption.
Ultimately, the situation underscores the widening gap between municipal assurances and lived realities on the ground.
As pressure mounts on both affected communities and the District Municipality, the resolution of the matter will depend not only on technical repairs, but also on consistent communication, operational capacity and accountability in service delivery planning.
With all of this in mind, what are your thoughts? Let us know below.
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2 Responses
In the article Amajuba Waterworks seems to claim they have repaired 14 burst pipes. How did these pipes burst if there’s no pressure inside them. I’ve made several attempts to take officials and even the deputy Mayor Sithole to where the community suspects the problem lies but they have remained unresponsive. It seems white city and Khayalethu is being punished for having chased away the local ifp mayor Cllr Buthelezi and DA Cllr Dekker during meeting held in White City. It is the only logical conclusion the community is left with.
The bottom line is that officials are not fit for purpose. They don’t have a clue as to what they are doing.Cadre deployment and so called transformation has destroyed our country.Merit has been sacrificed for race.