New Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina. (David Harrison/M&G)
South Africa’s multi-billion rand water and sanitation infrastructure projects are being destabilised by construction mafias, who are “holding the government to ransom”, the new deputy minister of water and sanitation, Sello Seitlholo, warned on Monday.
“There are interruptions that are happening across water related and sanitation projects at a local level,” he said during a media briefing to unpack the department of water and sanitation budget vote and plans.
“We’ve got these so-called SMMEs [small, medium and micro enterprises] that are disrupting and extorting money from construction companies all in the name of that particular 30%,” he said. “Now there is no upskilling, there is no development, so it’s a lose-lose situation for the government because the government is being held to ransom,” he said.
This issue was raised by various water boards during meetings and was brought to the minister with the intent of working with the security cluster to protect these water projects, Seitlholo said.
“These projects are worth billions of rands but they will not see the light of day because of the construction mafia,” he added.
Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina said the department had built 18 new dams since 1994, while there are 15 major national water resource infrastructure projects valued at more than R100 billion in different stages of implementation.
Some of these projects involve raising the walls of existing dams, and others the construction of new dams. “Many of these projects were delayed for a long period of time, but they have now all been unblocked, and it will be a priority for us to ensure that they are all implemented expeditiously,” she said.
Apart from grants, which the government provides to municipalities to address water and sanitation infrastructure backlogs and to provide free basic water to the indigent, the water sector has to be self-financing through revenues from the sale of water, Majodina said.
But, by May, the debts owed by municipalities to water boards rocketed to R21.3 billion.
“The water boards do not receive money from the fiscus and this debt is threatening their ongoing financial viability, as well as the financial viability of the whole sector,” she said.
Majodina said her department is focused on three priorities. “Firstly, we will ensure that there is timeous investment in additional national water resource infrastructure. Secondly, we will focus on diversifying the water mix, and increasingly make more use of other sources of water, including the sustainable use of groundwater, water reuse, and seawater desalination.
“Thirdly, we will implement more effective water conservation and demand management
programmes to bring our water consumption per capita levels in line with, or below, the
international average, and to ensure that industries use water as sparingly as possible.”
The minister noted that in her term, she will focus on working with municipalities to ensure that they prioritise projects using their regional bulk infrastructure grant and the water services infrastructure grant allocations.
The country’s water sector is grappling with numerous problems, which have left many of its citizens not having clean water or to safe and dignified sanitation, and from frequent water supply disruptions and sewage spillages, Majodina said.
South Africa is one of the 30 most water-scarce countries in the world, yet its average
consumption of water is 218 litres per capita per day, compared with the international average of 173 litres per capita per day.
“We have already captured 75% of the available surface water in dams, and the remaining opportunities for capturing surface water are expensive. At the same time, the demand for water in South Africa is increasing, as a result of population growth and economic growth.”
The average national access for the Reconstruction and Development Programme level of water service has increased from 60% in 1994 to 90%, which is a “major achievement”, she said. But, it does not mean that 90% of people in all areas have access to water.
“Some communities have 100% access, while some have 0% access. Communities are often forced to obtain water from sources which are polluted, and which sometimes contain dangerous animals.”
Majodina emphasised that her department will carry out the Drop assessments every two years, because they provide citizens with information about the state of their water and sanitation services, as well as providing municipalities with detailed information about the causes of poor services and what needs to be done to address them.
The latest Blue, Green and No Drop reports issued in December indicated that the quality and reliability of municipal water and sanitation services have deteriorated markedly over the past decade, the minister said.
The Blue Drop report found that the percentage of water supply systems with poor or bad microbiological water quality compliance increased from 5% in 2014 to 46% in 2023, resulting in increased risk of water-borne diseases.
The Green Drop Report found that 40% of wastewater treatment systems were in a
critical state of performance, compared with 30% in 2013. Ninety of the 144 water
services authorities had at least one critical wastewater system.
“Dysfunctional municipal wastewater systems are causing the pollution of communities, rivers, and the environment, resulting in intolerable living conditions and increased risk of life-threatening diseases such as cholera,” Majodina said.
The No Drop report also found that the national average for municipal non-revenue water — water that is pumped but is lost and unaccounted for — increased from 37% in 2014 to 47% in 2023. One implication of this is that municipalities with high non-revenue water are unable to pay water boards for treated water supplied by them and cannot afford to properly maintain and operate their water distribution infrastructure.
The minister said one of the underlying causes of increasing water supply disruptions in eThekwini and Gauteng is a shortage of raw water, which the department is addressing through the construction of the Polihali Dam in Lesotho and the uMkhomazi Water Project in KwaZulu-Natal.
“We will continue to work closely with eThekwini and the municipalities in Gauteng to encourage them to improve the maintenance and performance of their municipal water distribution infrastructure, such as by building additional reservoirs and pumping stations to improve the resilience of their systems, and by reducing leaks,” she said.
Her department will continue to support the City of Tshwane to address the shortage of piped clean drinking water in Hammanskraal. “This support has resulted in the city being able to make progress with the repair and upgrading of the Rooiwal wastewater treatment works to address the sewage pollution in the Apies River and to enable the Temba water treatment works to become functional again.”
By October — and “you must hold us accountable for this” — Magalies Water will complete the construction of phase one of a package plant to enable an alternative source of piped clean drinking water to start to be provided to Hammanskraal, but she stressed this won’t be a panacea for all the problems there.
“In eMfuleni local municipality, we will continue with the section 63 [of the Water Services
Act] Intervention through Rand Water to address sewage pollution in the Vaal,” Majodina said, noting that good progress has been made in refurbishing and repairing sewage pump stations, unblocking sewer lines, repairing collapsed sewer lines, as well as repairing and refurbishing waste water treatment works.
This has substantially reduced sewage pollution in residential areas in eMfuleni. The main remaining work is to upgrade the capacity of the wastewater treatment works, and these projects are in the procurement phase.
Majodina said that despite the high level of support that the department provides to municipalities, in general municipal water and sanitation services continue to decline. Her department will soon present the Water Services Amendment Bill to the cabinet for approval for it to be submitted to parliament.
The bill provides for the introduction of an operating licence system for water services providers, to enable water services authorities to ensure that their water services providers have a “minimum level of capability to provide water and sanitation services that meet national norms and standards”, she added.