Water shouldn’t be delivered on trucks…

Water is a basic human right – yet in South Africa, criminal networks often profit from its absence, using tankers to replace the pipes the government has long abandoned.

“Water is essential for life and is supposed to be a basic right,” notes the United Nations (UN), recognising access to water as a human right fundamental to “everyone’s health, dignity and prosperity”.

The right to water has also been provided for in the Bill of Rights. Chapter 2 of the Constitution of South Africa specifically stipulates everyone’s right to have access to sufficient water.

To give effect to this right, Parliament enacted the Water Services Act 08 of 1997. The purpose of this Act is to provide for the right to basic water supply and sanitation services and to ensure that there is sufficient water, as well as an environment that is not harmful to the health or well-being of people and animals.

The Water Services Act provides that:

• Everyone has a right of access to basic water supply and sanitation services.
• Every water services institution must take steps to realise these rights.
• Every municipality must plan to realise these rights in its water services development plan.

The Department of Water and Sanitation, which is the custodian of South Africa’s water resources, is mandated to promote effective and efficient water resources management to ensure sustainable economic and social development.

According to “The South African Human Rights Commission Revised Paper” on the Right to Water and Sanitation, government must provide at least 6,000 litres per household per month at a flow rate of no less than 10 litres/minute, within 200m of a stand. This must be safe for human consumption and “no consumer can be without water for more than seven days per year”.

This was agreed and adopted by the UN General Assembly 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which announced the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and where South Africa committed itself to achieving the SDGs within the set time frames.

Goal 6 of the SDGs, which deals with the right to water and sanitation services for all, commits our country to ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation and achieving universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030.

With this being a mere four years away, this is quite a tall order for the government when so many taps are running dry and, worse, many still do not even have access to clean water.

It’s fair to say that we have a rising chronic water crisis in the country. According to Alison Groves, the discipline lead of built ecology at WSP in Africa, approximately 40.8% of our piped water is lost due to leaks and theft, all while the water demand is projected to exceed supply by 2030.

And based on findings by ESI Africa, “South Africa is approaching physical water scarcity in 2025 where they are expected to experience a water deficit of 17% by 2030. Climate change will worsen the situation.”

To explain the “loss of water” you may have heard of the phrase “Non-Revenue Water (NRW)”. NRW represents water lost through leaks, theft and billing errors, with the national average increasing from 37% in 2014 to around 47% in 2023. This is due to ageing and dilapidated infrastructure, poor maintenance, lack of funding for replacements, inadequate capacity and issues with metering, illegal connections and billing.

Even as early as 2008, the government recognised that the major source of water loss was its “ageing infrastructure, which was exacerbated by poor operations and maintenance at a municipal level”. This was a “multi-faceted problem that included a lack of managerial and technical skills and funding”.

Almost 20 years later, nothing much has been done to avert this crisis, and we are citing the same rhetoric. In this year’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), which cost us a cool R12.3 million (that we know of), President Ramaphosa acknowledged that water was now “the single most important issue for many people in South Africa” and made it clear that there is no silver bullet to address the challenge, which has “its roots in systemic failures and many years of neglecting infrastructure”.

The president further elaborated that poor planning and inadequate maintenance of water systems by many municipalities are the main cause of the problems and the reason that taps often run dry. The people of South Africa were assured, “pipes that had been damaged are being repaired and the reservoirs are filling up again.”

The president announced several strategies to combat the crisis:

1. The Minister of Water and Sanitation and her deputy, as well as the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, will attend to the water shortage problem, engage with communities and explain to people how the government intends to immediately deal with the challenges experienced.
2. New dams will be built and existing infrastructure will be upgraded.
3. R156 billion in public funding has been committed for water and sanitation infrastructure over the next three years.
4. Construction of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and other large-scale projects like the Ntabelanga Dam – part of the Mzimvubu Water Project in the Eastern Cape – are advancing.
5. A National Water Resource Infrastructure Agency will be established to manage the country’s water infrastructure effectively and mobilise funding for water infrastructure.
6. The Water Services Amendment Bill will enable the government to hold water service providers accountable for their performance and withdraw their licences if they fail to deliver.
7. A National Water Crisis Committee, chaired by the president, will be formed to address the challenges together with technical experts and resources from the national government.
8. Municipalities that neglect their responsibility to supply water will be held accountable. Criminal charges have been brought against 56 municipalities that have failed to meet their obligations. Charges will be laid against municipal managers in their personal capacity for violating the National Water Act.
9. A new R54-billion incentive for metros to reform their water, sanitation and electricity services was introduced last year. This will ensure that revenues from water usage are put straight back into fixing pipes, reservoirs and pumping stations.

Civil society and advocacy groups are taking a wait-and-see approach to see if these promises will be delivered – and have even called for the ringfencing of water-related funding (we know from past interactions with both the National Treasury and government that this will not happen).

A good point has been made that the government should urgently confront the “water tanker economy”. Private water tankers were intended to be an interim measure to address water-delivery disruptions. Still, organised criminal groups (aka the water Mafia) have exploited this through various illicit activities to maximise profits, including corrupt tenders (including murder and intimidation), deliberate damage to water infrastructure to prolong contracts, illegal charges for water to residents, filling tankers from municipal supplies to sell the water and contaminating supplies to win contracts.

With so many past failed promises, I sincerely hope that this year will be different! Water shouldn’t be delivered on trucks, it shouldn’t be controlled by criminals and it shouldn’t require a presidential committee to fix pipes. South Africans deserve better than promises – they deserve water from a tap.