In a recent opinion piece, the executive manager of OUTA’s Local Government Division, Julius Kleynhans, listed the solutions for this problem.

South Africa is facing a significant challenge with its water services, and municipalities abusing their authority and shifting the burden to consumers and the Department of Water and Sanitation are to blame. 

“In June 2024, Johannesburg residents were again hit with weeks of water cuts due to maintenance by Rand Water and had to resort to begging for water tankers. In March 2024, residents in some parts of Johannesburg endured 11 days of water cuts after a lightning strike at Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station.

Apparently, lightning does strike twice, as a week later another strike at the same location slowed recovery of the reservoir system. In July, despite the erratic service, residents’ municipal water bills went up 7.7%. In Johannesburg, water cuts and higher prices have become routine.

The city is just another example of the collapse of water services across the country.

The burden on consumers

Municipalities are the primary providers of water services to communities. However, instead of ensuring efficient and sustainable water supply, many have resorted to externalising their costs. This practice directly affects consumers, who face escalating water tariffs.

In many cases, these increases are not proportionate to the quality or reliability of the water services provided. In fact, in the Department of Water and Sanitation’s Blue Drop and Green Drop reports in 2023, it was clear that the quality and health of municipal water supply and wastewater was severely declining.

These reports stated, among other things, that 46% of drinking water did not comply with microbiological standards, posing a health threat to consumers, and more than 80% of wastewater treatment works did not comply with clean discharge standards, polluting our water resources.

The reasons behind the water tariff hikes are manifold.

Poor infrastructure maintenance leads to frequent breakdowns and water losses, which municipalities then pass on to consumers through higher service charges. Additionally, there is a significant issue with non-revenue water – water that is produced but not billed due to leaks, theft, or metering inaccuracies. Instead of addressing these inefficiencies, municipalities often opt for the easier route of raising tariffs to cover the shortfall.

For example, the City of Johannesburg’s water utility Johannesburg Water reported in its annual report for 2022/23 (the most recent available) that the level of non-revenue water was 46.11% (R3.4-billion) in 2022/23, up from 44.79% in 2022/23.

The City’s budget for 2024/25 records that the water tariffs it charges customers increased by 9.75% in 2022/23, by 9.3% in 2023/24 and by 7.7% in 2024/25, indicating that the cost of the water losses is being passed on to customers.

Loss is a reality of service delivery, but the acceptable limit and global average is 20%. This is a national problem: the Department of Water and Sanitation’s No Drop Report in 2023 says 46.4% of water nationally is non-revenue water and blames the increase over the previous three years on “the Covid-19 pandemic, deteriorating, and collapsing municipalities”.

Where municipal services decline, consumers are forced to buy bottled water, walk to water tankers, or get water from rivers and dams, erect back-up water supply tanks, drill boreholes and install and maintain water purification systems while they are still paying ever-increasing connection levies and water and sanitation tariffs.

Joburg Water’s annual report for 2022/23 records that it spent about R122-million on water tankers (up from R91-million the previous year), but a common complaint during water outages is that tankers never arrive or there aren’t enough. Tankers are not listed in the annual budget, indicating the City’s haphazard approach to providing water during service breaks.

Misallocation of resources

Financial mismanagement and corruption are rampant within many municipalities. Funds allocated for infrastructure development and maintenance are often misappropriated or squandered on inflated contracts and substandard projects.

In fact, some projects were paid for, but no infrastructure exists. This not only drains municipal coffers but also means that necessary upgrades to water infrastructure are delayed or never take place. Consequently, the system remains inefficient, and the costs of these inefficiencies are ultimately borne by the consumer.

Externalising costs to the Department of Water and Sanitation

The Department of Water and Sanitation is tasked with overseeing the country’s water resources and ensuring that municipalities meet their service delivery obligations. However, due to the pervasive inefficiencies at the municipal level, the department often finds itself intervening to prevent service delivery failures.

This includes providing emergency funding, technical assistance, and sometimes even taking over the management of water services in particularly dysfunctional municipalities.

In November 2023, the department gave Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Water and Sanitation an overview of interventions in municipalities, which included advising municipalities on improving project management and avoiding under-expenditure and bringing in water boards to assist municipalities in getting projects going, yet many municipalities still failed to implement projects effectively.

What causes greater concern is the extent to which municipalities abuse this process, knowing that if they allocate inefficient budgets or fail to provide sufficient water services, the Department of Water and Sanitation must intervene and come to their aid.

This opens up municipal water revenue to abuse. One can only wonder what these funds have been used for at the expense of municipal consumers.

Such interventions place an enormous strain on the department’s already limited resources. Instead of focusing on long-term strategic planning and development, the department is bogged down with crisis management.

The financial burden of these interventions is substantial and diverts funds from critical national water projects and, in the end, a lot of the municipal projects are handed back to the culprits who caused the problems.

The need for accountability and reform

To address these issues, a multifaceted approach is needed.

First, there must be greater accountability at the municipal level. This includes stringent oversight mechanisms to ensure that funds are used appropriately and that there is transparency in financial reporting. Anti-corruption measures must be robust, with severe penalties for those found guilty of misappropriating public funds or negligently polluting our water resources through inadequate wastewater management.

Second, investment in infrastructure must be prioritised and executed. This includes both the repair and maintenance of existing systems and the development of new infrastructure to meet the growing demand. Innovative solutions such as water recycling and desalination should also be explored to diversify our water sources.

Third, capacity building is essential. Many municipalities lack the technical expertise required to manage complex water systems effectively. Training programmes and the hiring of skilled personnel could help bridge this gap. 

Fourth, transparency with regards to drinking water quality is essential. Consumers have a right to know what they are drinking and whether wastewater is treated and discharged at required standards as they pay for a specified and regulated quality of drinking water and sanitation.

In July, OUTA’s WaterCAN initiative raised concern that municipalities were not warning the public about contaminated water and named 11 municipalities as particularly problematic (see here). When there is a breakdown in service and supply, inadequate communication and inefficient efforts to repair result in communities panicking. The trust breakdown leads to rumours filling the void, residents worrying about water quality, and those who can afford to get off the system doing so, reducing revenue to the entity.

Fifth, there should be a concerted effort to involve communities in water management. When consumers are part of the decision-making process, there is greater transparency, and it becomes easier to address local issues promptly.

Lastly, water and sanitation revenue should be ring-fenced towards its intended purpose to fix this dire problem. Currently municipalities use this revenue to fund other spending, despite the collapse of this infrastructure. 

The way forward

The abuse of authority by municipalities and the externalisation of water service costs on to consumers and the Department of Water and Sanitation is a significant barrier to achieving sustainable water management in South Africa.

By implementing reforms that promote accountability, transparency, and efficiency, we can ensure that our water resources are managed more effectively, benefiting both consumers and the broader environment. It is imperative that we tackle these issues head-on to secure a water-secure future for all South Africans, and this is an area with very little room for failure.

All stakeholders – the government, civil society, and the private sector – need to take serious action to drive these necessary changes before it’s too late.

Only through good and transparent leadership, collective action and individual accountability can we overcome the challenges facing our water services and build a system that truly serves the people.

*This opinion piece was first published by Daily Maverick on 2 August 2024.