Wastewater: An overflowing drain flowing in a town in Mpumalanga. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
A landmark ruling by the Mpumalanga High Court, which slapped the Emalahleni local municipality with a hefty R650 million fine for allowing raw sewage to flow into rivers and dams for years, has been hailed as a long-overdue step toward accountability.
The judgment must mark the start of a nationwide crackdown on municipal polluters and the officials who enable them, experts said.
The judgment is a watershed moment and a sobering indictment of municipal collapse, said Anja du Plessis, an associate professor at Unisa and specialist in water resource management.
“It is unfortunate that we needed to get to this point of criminalising these actions,” she said. “But the ruling is welcomed and this case once again exposes and emphasises the core issues affecting most wastewater treatment works in the country.”
For Du Plessis, the judgment reinforces what has long been known. “This ruling also supports what we have been saying for decades — there is an ongoing crisis in municipal wastewater management and overall pollution. You do not have to travel far to find such an example.”
The ruling supports better maintenance and financial management, the need for better oversight, and for skilled, experienced operators, as well as compliance across all departments that contributed to the mess. “Accountability is overdue. This should be one action of many.”
The case followed an intensive investigation by both the Green Scorpions and the Blue Scorpions after community complaints about persistent sewage spills from municipal manholes into tributaries of the Olifants River.
Between March 2019 and March 2025, Emalahleni repeatedly allowed untreated sewage to overflow, contaminating the Witbank Dam, the Naawpoort River, Steenkoolspruit, the Klein Olifants, and ultimately the Olifants River.
The municipality pleaded guilty to multiple offences under the National Environmental Management Act and the National Water Act, including unauthorised waste disposal, failure to comply with licence conditions, environmental pollution, and failure to comply with compliance notices.
In court, state advocate Beauty Cibangu emphasised the ecological and public health consequences, warning of severe health risks, environmental degradation, and economic losses for communities. The judge imposed a fine of R650 million or 10 years’ imprisonment, with R150 million suspended for five years if no further pollution offences occur. R500 million must be ring-fenced for rehabilitating Emalahleni’s broken wastewater systems.
The municipality has to submit technical and environmental reports by March 2026 and complete repairs by April 2031.
The National Prosecuting Authority welcomed the ruling, saying it reaffirms its commitment to prosecuting environmental crimes “without fear or favour”.
The judgment is a powerful signal that municipalities can no longer poison waterways with impunity, said WaterCAN, a civil society initiative driving water justice. But fines alone will not resolve a crisis rooted in human decisions, negligence and poor governance, its executive director Ferrial Adam warned.
“For far too long, communities have paid the price while officials who presided over collapsing wastewater systems move quietly into new positions,” she said. “There must be direct, personal consequences for those who signed off on, ignored or concealed unlawful discharges – not just for the municipality as a legal entity.”
WaterCAN is demanding that the Emalahleni prosecution model be replicated countrywide, with both institutions and individuals in the dock. Personal accountability, Adam stressed, must extend to current and former municipal managers, line managers and technical staff involved in decisions that allowed unlawful discharges.
“Where officials have moved to other municipalities, water boards or private companies, they must still be traced and held to account. You should not be able to preside over the slow poisoning of a river in one town and then take up a senior job in another as if nothing happened,” Adam said.
The non-profit is calling for a national audit and enforcement drive using Green Drop assessments and targeted investigations to identify municipalities that have ignored directives. It also wants full transparency: all plea agreements, rehabilitation plans and spending of ring-fenced fines must be made public and reported to affected communities.
The department of water and sanitation also welcomed the ruling, noting that it follows the municipality’s repeated failure to comply with several directives and compliance notices aimed at preventing sewage spillages into water resources and the surrounding environment.
“A criminal case was subsequently opened to compel the municipality to halt ongoing pollution,” it said, adding it will monitor Emalahleni’s action plan to ensure repairs are implemented and pollution is halted.
The municipality had not responded to the Mail & Guardian by the time of publication.
For Du Plessis, the judgment cannot remain an outlier. “It is hoped that with the various amendments to legislation as well as norms and standards, that we will start to see accountability on a municipal scale – municipal managers and those who are found to be responsible must pay the price and be replaced with competency.
“The time for actual action, accountability and change is long overdue. We simply cannot afford the continued pollution of our water resources, with many examples such as this being evident across the country.”
New research published in the Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal strengthens this point.
The study, titled Municipal sewage pollution in South Africa: Evaluating criminal prosecution, legal defences and regulatory reform, said the country’s water crisis is being worsened by widespread sewage pollution from ageing, under-maintained and often dysfunctional municipal wastewater treatment works.
Many municipalities routinely discharge untreated or partially treated sewage into rivers, dams and groundwater, causing ecological damage, health risks and reduced access to safe water.
In response, regulators have increasingly turned to criminal prosecution. But the study cautions that prosecutions alone cannot fix deeper structural issues such as underfunding, skills shortages, political instability and weak oversight. Criminal cases may secure convictions, but they do not automatically repair infrastructure or build long-term capacity.
The authors argue for a more coherent regulatory framework that combines criminal enforcement with administrative support, clearer standards and consistent monitoring.
They point out that recent reforms — such as updated norms and standards, strengthened environmental enforcement guidelines and new water-sector regulations – are promising but insufficient unless they are backed by adequate funding, political will and ongoing oversight.
The authors call for stronger regulatory clarity, greater enforcement capacity, targeted use of criminal prosecutions, better intergovernmental cooperation, personal liability for negligent officials and significant investment in wastewater infrastructure.