WaterCAN calls on municipalities to warn the public about contaminated tap water, as 11 municipalities across six provinces are consistently failing water quality tests without alerting residents. 

In a shocking revelation, OUTA’s water division, WaterCAN, revealed that the municipalities in question do not warn their residents about the detection in their tap water, nor do they issue boil-alert notices.

According to the process that needs to be followed, every failure (that is the presence of E.coli or bacteria in drinking water) must trigger an investigation and another test must be done. In cases where the resample is taken and failure is confirmed, an advisory notice (or boil-water notice) must be publicly issued to alert users to the quality of the drinking water.

The following water service authorities had consistent failures, and most were repeats in the past three to six months:  

• City of Tshwane, Gauteng

• Blue Crane Local Municipality, Eastern Cape

• Alfred Nzo District Municipality, Eastern Cape

• Chris Hani LM, Eastern Cape

• Masilonyana LM, Free State

• Ngwathe LM, Free State

• Thaba Chweu LM, Mpumalanga

• Thembisile Hani LM, Mpumalanga

• Kgetlengrivier LM, North West

• Siyancuma LM, Northern Cape

• Pixley ka Seme DM, Northern Cape

“These are definitely not the only municipalities in the country that have failed water quality tests. It is therefore imperative that municipalities make their monthly tests publicly available. People have the right to know the quality of the water that they are drinking,” said Dr Ferrial Adam, Manager of WaterCAN, an OUTA division.

The Blue Drop Report released in 2023 highlights the fact that at least 46% of drinking systems don’t comply with microbiological standards. According to the regulations under the Water Services Act, it is mandatory for a municipality to inform users if it repeatedly finds water quality does not meet basic standards.

Not issuing boil-water notices to match the situation reflected in the Blue Drop Report is illegal and it puts people’s lives at risk. However, said Dr Adam, not nearly enough boil notices are issued, since it is unlikely that the problems of water quality recorded in the report have all been resolved.

“Why are the municipalities not issuing notices warning residents to boil water in unsafe areas?”

According to WaterCAN, there are also challenges in the City of Johannesburg with isolated cases of communal taps that have shown failures (but which were subsequently addressed). In addition, she says, the municipality has faced a shortage of micro-sampling bottles that affected timeous testing, while the lack of water in the City has also affected its ability to test water.

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