Government releases figures on drinking- and wastewater management: Greater water problems in South Africa’s future

5 December 2023

The results of the Department of Water and Sanitation’s (DWS) blue drop report, green drop progress report and no water report, released today, highlight the problems with municipalities’ management of drinking- and wastewater. AfriForum has been expressing concern about this for several years – this concern was once again confirmed in the organisation’s recent independent blue-and-green drop report.

AfriForum has been compiling a blue and green drop report annually since 2013 after the DWS stopped compiling this report. Since 2013, AfriForum yearly requested that the DWS compile these types of reports again – this report is the third of its kind to be launched by the DWS in the last two years. The latest report was launched as pressure on the government increased due to an increase in cholera cases in South Africa and the general decline in municipal service delivery.

The blue drop report’s results show the following:

277 of the country’s 985 water supply systems (WSS’s) are in a critical condition, 184 WSS’s are in the medium-risk category and 122 WSS’s are in the high-risk category.

The WSS’s that have generally performed best are in the Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. In contrast, the WSS’s that are in a critical condition are found in the Free State, Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape.

Failure to pay contractors, laboratories and service providers is a common problem and leads to services not being delivered, delayed or stopped altogether.

Worrying sub-standard quality of drinking water to the public – at a national level the drinking water quality of 46% of WSS’s do not comply with microbiological standards and 44% of WSS’s do not comply with chemical standards for safe human consumption.

The majority of municipalities (57%) do not notify water users if the quality of drinking water is compromised or is not monitored – this leads to waning confidence on the part of the consumer about the quality of the drinking water in their taps.

Many WSS’s are almost at the edge of their capacity.

Many municipalities do not have water abstraction authorisation in place, do not measure their abstraction volumes or over-abstract their permitted quota. The lack of water abstraction management has a significant impact on water resource planning and preservation for the country as a whole.

“This paints an extremely worrying picture especially because it is clear that municipalities are incompetent and do not have the ability to provide basic services such as clean drinking water. What is even more worrying is that municipalities do not notify their residents when water quality is compromised and this can be life-threatening,” says Lambert de Klerk, Manager for Environmental Affairs at AfriForum.

The green drop progress report shows the following:

8% of wastewater treatment works (WWTW’s) are in the low-risk category, 24% in the medium-risk category, 34% in the high-risk category and 34% in the critical-risk category.

The municipal risk profile is as follows: 9% of WWTW’s are in the low-risk category, 25% in the medium-risk category, 34% in the high-risk category and 32% in the critical-risk category.

In other words 67.6% of WWTW’s are in the high- and critical-risk categories.

25% of WWTW’s are in the medium-risk category, 34% are in the high-risk category and 32% in the critical-risk category – indicating a deterioration in the status of wastewater in South Africa compared to 2022 reports.

“The mismanagement of wastewater causes a vicious cycle that can also affect the quality of drinking water. With almost two-thirds of WWTW’s posing a high or critical risk, it is not at all far-fetched that the treatment of drinking water will also become much more problematic in the future. Ultimately, this will have a huge impact on the cost of drinking water, because it will become more and more expensive to purify water. Given the critical condition of almost a third of the country’s WSS’s, this can already lead to life-threatening situations,” says Marais de Vaal, AfriForum’s Advisor for Environmental Affairs.

The no drop report’s results show the following:

144 water services authorities were audited. Only 4 received 90% or higher, 8 between 80-90% (good performance), 43 between 50-80% (average performance), 65 below 50% (poor to critical) and 24 received 0% as they did not provide any information.

Overall water loss nationally – due to leaks in the distribution network – stands at 40.8%.

“If one looks at the content of these reports, one stands in disbelief at the Minister of Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs, Thembi Nkadimeng’s recent statement that there is a remarkable improvement in municipalities. The provision of clean drinking water, which is a basic human right, weakens year after year and the number of towns with water problems is also only increasing. How is this an indication that municipalities have improved remarkably? These statements are nothing but an election gimmick. However, most people see through this lie, because they live in the reality of mismanagement every day,” concludes De Vaal.

In 2024, AfriForum will launch a National Water Strategy in which practical plans will be outlined to make communities more independent from incompetent municipalities’ defective water and sanitation service delivery.

Issued by Marais de Vaal, Advisor: Environmental Affairs, AfriForum, 5 December 2023