Modus operandi: The water thieves use intimidation, extortion and threats to force people to rely on private water tankers. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
Three water treatment works were invaded and stripped in Merafong City municipality and zama zamas then created their own water supply network.
This is the most extreme example of water mafias in South Africa that has emerged in discussions with water services officials on the ground, according to Tracy-Lynn Field, the principal investigator of the South African Water Justice Tracker Project.
Field, a professor of environmental and sustainability law at the University of the Witwatersrand, spoke about the findings of the project at a forum this week hosted by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on how to grapple with the systemic sabotage of essential water infrastructure.
“Water mafias severely undermine and interfere with the provision of water services in South Africa and their activities need to be stopped,” she said.
A policy brief released by the commission paints a bleak picture of extensive water infrastructure sabotage and criminal infiltration, warning that the deliberate destruction and manipulation of water infrastructure by criminal syndicates for disruption and profit has become a scourge that poses a significant danger and imperils efforts to ensure access to water for all in South Africa.
These mafias have at times “obtained a stranglehold” on the water value chain, it said. “They have embedded themselves in the water value chain, sacrificing access to water, a public good, at the altar of personal economic gain.”
The commission developed the policy brief with the expert assistance of the Dullah Omar Institute at the University of the Western Cape. “Water is a public good which is the lifeblood of human existence,” it reads. “Any calculated and deliberate act seeking to sabotage essential water infrastructure has a deleterious impact on the right to water, which is a constitutional right.”
(Graphic: John McCann/M&G)
The South African Water Justice Tracker project is a partnership between Wits and the SAHRC which seeks to identify the key factors inhibiting water services authorities from effectively carrying out their role of water provision.
“What we set out to do was to map through a series of indicators the progressive realisation of the right to water across all 144 water services authorities in South Africa,” said Field. “One of the really good things that came out of this project was that we used the SAHRC’s convening powers to bring together municipal officials across all nine provinces.”
Since 2023, nine provincial meetings have been held.
“The people attending weren’t the politicians; they were the technical guys, mostly. They are the people on the ground; they are in charge of managing the water treatment works or the distribution network, so it gives us a unique insight into the kinds of operational challenges that water service authorities are experiencing,” Field said.
Stranglehold: Water mafias in rural and urban areas are denying people their constitutional right to water for personal economic gain. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
What has emerged from these discussions is that the theft and vandalism of water infrastructure is a nationwide problem that does not only afflict the country’s metros. “It is definitely across the board.”
There are at least three categories: water mafias, the theft and vandalism of electrical infrastructure and the theft or vandalism of water services infrastructure, which Field described as not just a problem for local authorities but “a whole-of-government and a whole-of-society problem” requiring a concurrent response.
Water mafias are involved in the intentional damage or tampering with the water distribution network, which then forces people to rely on private tankering solutions. This may include extortion, threats and intimidation.
“This was alluded to in many of our engagements with some extreme examples. The most extreme example comes from the City of Merafong where they reported that three of their water treatment works had been invaded and stripped and the zama zamas had then created their own water supply network,” Field said.
Several municipal officials also alluded to collusion, suggesting embedded corruption. Field cited how, in a Limpopo municipality, one of the statements was that 90% of vandalism arises from “internal work”.
“Some municipalities reported how they had appointed contractors to deliver water and then found out that those contractors were actually charging community members [for water]. This was a case of not having sufficient oversight. In some cases, it might be collusion; in other cases it might be insufficient oversight.”
One municipality approached the police after uncovering a water mafia and tried to report it. “They were told by the SAPS [South African Police Services] to ‘go and discuss it among yourselves’. There isn’t inter-departmental coordination to try and tackle this problem as a whole-of-government problem.”
The theft and vandalism of electrical infrastructure is a serious and constant threat to the provision of water services across all municipalities, Field said. In Polokwane, water services officials flagged it as a “serious concern”, Mogale City officials said it was a “huge security issue” while Kgatleng in North West singled it out as its “biggest challenge”. JB Marks municipality in the North West reported that there was cable theft every week.
The Langeberg local municipality suffers unplanned power interruptions caused by the theft of entire kilovolt lines and cables, with infrastructure damage so severe “it is often uninsurable”. It spends R28 million on security services and has established a cable theft steering committee and community forum.
“Crime syndicates from metros are expanding into smaller towns and the scrap metal trade is a huge issue,” Field said.
Similarly, the theft and vandalism of water infrastructure is a nationwide problem that is affecting borehole pumps, meters, fire hydrants and illegal connections.
In Letsemeng in the Free State, water officials said the theft of borehole pumps and the vandalism of facilities was their most pressing issue. Officials in Tsantsabane in the Northern Cape reported that “vandalism is everywhere”, with miscreants stealing fire hydrants in the dead of night.
This also affects wastewater infrastructure as huge rocks are thrown into the sewer system, including around election time “as a form of showing up opposing political parties”, Field said. The theft and vandalism of water infrastructure is linked to drug addiction, poverty and the lack of community awareness.
According to the policy brief, the country has steadily progressed in the attainment of the right of access to sufficient water. According to Statistics South Africa, in 2024 the percentage of households with access to piped or tap water in their homes — off-site or on-site increased supply — stood at 87%.
Despite these significant gains, disparities remain, with roughly three million people still not having access to a potable water supply. The policy brief said the Blue Drop Report 2023 “casts a bleak picture of water service delivery in South Africa”, highlighting how the performance of water authorities has generally regressed since 2014, with at least 29% of water systems in a critical state.
Meanwhile, the auditor general’s report for the financial year 2023-24 shows that water services authorities suffered material water losses of an estimated R14.91 billion.
“At least one third (33.7%) of households experienced water interruptions in 2024 that lasted more than two consecutive days. These reports create doubt about whether water services authorities can provide households with access to adequate water services,” it said.
Water-related complaints continue to rank in the top five complaints received by the SAHRC, with the bulk relating to local government service delivery and inadequate services provided to residents and communities, said Henk Boshoff, a water and sanitation commissioner at the commission. These long-standing complaints have led to four provincial enquiries related to water since 2021.
Water services provision is a complex function of local government, and it is not surprising that water services authorities “face many challenges” when providing water, the commission said. Criminal activities targeting water infrastructure are becoming increasingly serious.
“Reports show the nature and extent of crime that targets water infrastructure varies from severe vandalism, corruption and procurement irregularities to violent attacks on municipal officials. In some instances, municipal officials are held hostage, tortured, and others murdered,” it said.
The policy brief notes how in August 2023, the Tsojane bulk pipeline in the Chris Hani municipality in Butterworth in the Eastern Cape was sabotaged on numerous occasions, causing major leakages and recurring water outages affecting Comfimvaba and 40 surrounding villages.
“Similarly, residents in some parts of eThekwini, in KwaZulu-Natal, were left without water for eight days in September 2023 following infrastructure vandalism. In Meloding, in the Matjhabeng local municipality, Free State, such a pattern is more apparent where a bulk pipeline was destroyed just days after it was repaired.”
The inability of water services authorities to provide an adequate water supply has led to the emergence of water tankers and water mafias. These organised syndicates deliberately sabotage infrastructure, particularly at a municipal level, with the sole objective of profit-making.
The modus operandi of the mafias varies. In some instances, it involves the vandalisation of water pumps or water valves, with the objective of a self-created water supply crisis. “Alternatively, they provide organised crime networks with information about planned infrastructure repairs, thereby enabling the mafias to sabotage them within days of repair.”
In those instances, water tankering becomes inevitable, concomitantly benefiting some of these water mafias. “It is also alleged that these so-called water mafias are at times in cahoots with municipal officials.”
This deliberate sabotage and vandalism of water infrastructure causes not only a disruption to the water supply but also comes at a huge cost. The City of Tshwane spends about R98 million a year on water tankers and Gauteng has cumulatively spent more than R2.3 billion from 2018 to 2023 to supply water using tankers.
“It is clear that water-related infrastructure, such as water pumps, water valves, water pipelines and water treatment plants, is being deliberately sabotaged by well-organised criminal syndicates for ‘nefarious and personal financial gains’,” the brief says.
Certain water tanker mafias abstract water from dams and rivers, bypassing quality controls. “This poses a significant health risk, as illustrated by the Hammanskraal cholera outbreak, which was linked to the quality of some of the water provided by water tankers.”
The SAHRC said many acts of vandalism, sabotage and violence directed at municipal workers may be tied to the operations of water tanker mafias. In 2022 and 2023, eight water service employees were murdered in eThekwini.
Municipal officials and security personnel at the Utrecht water treatment plant were held at gunpoint and tortured during a copper cable heist in January 2024. After another murder in May last year, a municipal worker compared working in the water department in eThekwini to “working in a war zone”.
In October 2024, 10 attackers held four security guards at gunpoint at the Temba wastewater treatment plant in Tshwane. “The attackers vandalised the plant and stole the cell phones and firearms of the security guards.
eThekwini municipality’s communication unit reported in December 2024 that a water services employee was shot while at a reservoir.
The sabotage of water infrastructure is an “emerging and escalating threat”, David Mahlobo, the deputy minister of water and sanitation, told the forum.
He highlighted how criminal syndicates, often colluding with “unscrupulous individuals”, are disrupting water supply networks, damaging pump stations, pipelines and valves, and then profiting by selling water through tankers at inflated prices.
This not only cripples infrastructure but also endangers public health, inflates municipal budgets through recurring repair costs and degrades the dignity of affected communities.
These criminal operations are widespread and coordinated, leading to water outages because of the theft of pipes, cables and meters, Mahlobo said. And the problem is not limited to urban centres; it is emerging across the country and requires “urgent, coordinated and forceful action”.
“We will not tolerate the deliberate sabotage of our water infrastructure,” he said. “We are closing the space for criminals to operate and we will pursue them relentlessly, through law enforcement, community mobilisation and with the full weight of state institutions.”
The most vulnerable people in society are hardest hit by sabotage and corruption, said Ferrial Adam, the executive director of nonprofit WaterCAN.
“People are now using their Sassa [South African Social Security Agency] grants to buy water,” she said.
“When water tanks go into communities and they’re charging people for water, they are too afraid to tell anyone that they’re buying water, because they’re afraid the tanks won’t be coming back so they won’t get water. They are being held hostage.”