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The findings of the Green Drop 2025 report, released alongside the latest Blue Drop and No Drop progress assessments, highlight mounting strain across the country’s water sector. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
BLUE DROP

SA is moving backwards with water, says WaterCAN

The latest Green Drop report shows how the country’s rivers are being “turned into sewage channels”

  • Sheree Bega
3 min read
Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina has approved a temporary increase in water abstraction by Rand Water to stabilise Gauteng’s strained municipal water systems (DWS/X)
BLUE DROP

Water and sanitation department ramping up reforms, interventions to avoid water crisis

Of South Africa’s 144 water service authorities, 105 are performing ‘dismally’, according to Minister Pemmy Majodina

  • Des Erasmus
5 min read
An employee with the City of Tshwane collects a sample of water from a municipal tank truck in Hammanskraal on May 23, 2023, where a cholera outbreak, including surrounding areas, killed 31 people. (Photo by MICHELE SPATARI/AFP via Getty Images)
BILL HARDING

SA water woes must not be ‘exaggerated’, says Mchunu

The minister is adamant the country is not experiencing a crisis, despite about half the water in our systems being unsafe for drinking

  • Sheree Bega
8 min read
Nearly half of South Africa’s drinking water systems are in a poor state. (Getty Images)
MICROBIAL CONTAMINATION

Severe decline in drinking water quality since 2014

Nearly half of South Africa’s drinking water systems are in a poor state

  • Sheree Bega
5 min read
File: Untreated sewage flows into Durban harbour after pumps at the Mahatma Gandhi Road treatment plant broke. Photo by Rogan Ward
ANJA DU PLESSIS

Water quality reports are ‘hard proof’ of ANC’s inability to improve performance

In April last year, the department’s Green Drop report identified 334 wastewater systems in a critical condition in 90 municipalities.

  • Sheree Bega
8 min read
Gauteng residents collecting water from a tanker. File photo
BLUE DROP

SA water quality has deteriorated and could pose a health risk – DWS

The Department of Water and Sanitation’s Blue and Green Drop Reports show that microbiological and chemical compliance are lacking in our drinking water

  • Ozayr Patel
4 min read
Service failure: A woman in the Free State, collects water from a pool used to store water. The revival of the drop programmes will enable the R1-trillion rebuild of the water sector in South Africa. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
ANTHONY TURTON

Water sector to clean up its act

The Blue and Green Drop programmes are being relaunched to rebuild SA’s often poorly maintained and ‘looted’ water systems

  • Sheree Bega
6 min read
Everyone in South Africa lives downstream from a sewage discharge point into their drinking water supply, which is why the Blue and Green Drop reports are so important. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
ANTHONY TURTON

Why we need the Blue and Green Drop reports: ‘Everyone in SA lives downstream from a sewage discharge point’

The last reports were in 2014 but were stopped probably because the results were too shocking to be publicised, water experts say

  • Sheree Bega
5 min read