Joburg wants households to pay 66% more to receive water

The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) has proposed a 65.6% increase for the water demand management levy charged to households each month from 1 July 2026.

Currently, domestic users pay R65.08 (excluding Vat) monthly before they open a tap, regardless of whether they are on conventional (postpaid) meters or prepaid ones. In its proposed tariffs for the 2026/27 financial year, it wants to increase this to R107.74 per month.

This levy was quietly introduced for residential (or what the city calls “domestic”) consumers as well as commercial and industrial ones in the 2017/18 financial year and hasn’t really received meaningful pushback from ratepayers.

On implementation in that year, the approved tariff book did not even attempt to justify or motivate its existence.

Joburg Water, which is battling to keep taps flowing across the city, uses this fee to help fund its infrastructure.

The city says the levy “is a fixed charge for each water connection to cover the network costs and cost of the base water installation over the lifespan of the meter, irrespective of the consumption”.

Hilariously, the CoJ’s summary of proposed tariff charges for water, sewerage and sanitation services states that: “Demand Levy to be increased by 12.5%.”

This is patently false. The only 12.5% increase in the water demand management levy is for commercial/industrial users.

The increase in this levy for residential customers has been an eye-watering 194.5% in the last two years.

Put simply, if this tariff is implemented as proposed, the water demand management levy charged to households will have basically tripled since 30 June 2025.

Over the decade-long lifespan of this levy, residential charges are up 438.7% while for commercial users, the tariff is 175.9% higher.

The round amounts of R20 and R150 on introduction in 2017/18 offer further evidence that these numbers were practically plucked out of thin air by city administrators.

Aside from a large jump to R200 (another number seemingly dreamt up) for commercial users the following year (2018/19), the increases have been largely steady – roughly in line with the increase in water tariffs – until 2024/25.

Since then, households have been by far the hardest hit.

Residential usage tariffs to increase by 12.5% …

As in other metros and municipalities, water usage is billed on a consumption basis by the City of Joburg, with steeper prices per kilolitre (kl) the more you consume.

Following last year’s 13.9% increase, the CoJ proposes a 12.5% increase for water tariffs for residential customers.

* Residential customers, tariffs exclude Vat

* Residential customers, tariffs exclude Vat

However, because of the fixed charge, households will experience a larger increase than 12.5% for their water bills from July, even if their usage remains exactly the same.

Typical actual impact

Using a hypothetical example of a household of four which uses (exactly) 35 kilolitres a month, the increase in water charges (excluding sanitation) will be 14.8%, not 12.5%.

This 35-kilolitre assumption is not outlandish.

According to the city, the average person in Johannesburg uses between 275 and 279 litres of water a day (which is 60% higher than the global average). For a household of four, this is between 30 and 33 kilolitres.

This increase in Joburg Water’s consumption tariffs of ‘only’ 12.5% comes on the back of Rand Water’s proposed 10% increase in its tariff for bulk water to municipalities.

Across its input costs of raw water, electricity, chemicals, labour and depreciation, Rand Water projects internal inflation of 10% in the next financial year.

This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.

Support Local Journalism

Add The Citizen as a Preferred Source on Google and follow us on Google News to see more of our trusted reporting in Google News and Top Stories.