South Africa does not lack the knowledge, institutional experience or technical expertise to confront its water crisis. What we lack, in too many parts of the country, is the decisive leadership, effective governance and political will to translate these capabilities into reliable water services.
Our crisis is therefore not simply one of water availability. It is fundamentally a crisis of infrastructure, institutional performance, accountability and the capacity to govern.
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This distinction is crucial. South Africa is a water-scarce country, exposed to increasingly unpredictable rainfall, prolonged droughts, climate change and rising demand from households, agriculture, industry and a growing economy. Securing water for future generations requires sustained investment in water resources, new infrastructure, sustained infrastructure maintenance, conservation, reuse, desalination and more efficient water management. These realities cannot be understated.
However, the immediate water delivery crisis confronting many communities is not primarily a consequence of insufficient water at source or an inability to produce bulk water. South Africa has secured substantial national raw-water supplies and developed an extensive bulk-water infrastructure network. The more acute challenge is getting that water reliably to people’s taps. It is at the municipal reticulation level, where water must pass through reservoirs, pumping stations and distribution pipelines, that many of our most serious failures occur. This does not negate local resource and bulk-supply constraints or future demand pressures; it identifies where the immediate service delivery breakdown is most pronounced.
The uncomfortable truth is that water security is not achieved simply by having water in our dams or treatment plants. It is achieved when water can reliably travel through functioning infrastructure into homes, schools, hospitals, farms and businesses. We cannot celebrate the availability of bulk water while communities remain without reliable supply because municipal distribution systems are failing.
The Department of Water and Sanitation’s latest Drop assessments, released in March 2026, provide compelling evidence of the depth of the problem. The 2025 No Drop Progress Assessment found national non-revenue water at approximately 47.3%, virtually unchanged from 47.4% in the 2023 assessment. This remains substantially worse than the 37% recorded in 2014. Almost half of the water entering municipal distribution systems is therefore lost or supplied without generating revenue. These losses reflect leaking infrastructure, inaccurate or absent metering, illegal connections and weaknesses in billing and revenue collection.
The 2025 Green Drop Report is equally concerning. Of 848 municipal wastewater treatment systems assessed, 47% (396 systems) were classified as being in a critical condition, compared with 39% (334 systems) in 2022. Meanwhile, the proportion of systems achieving good or excellent performance declined from 14% to just 8%. Only 14 systems achieved Green Drop certification, down from 22 in 2022.
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The Blue Drop findings also demand attention. The proportion of water supply systems with poor or bad microbiological water quality compliance increased from 5% in 2014 to 46% in the 2023 full assessment. Although the 2025 progress assessment recorded a modest improvement in critical-risk systems, declining from 9.9% to 7.9%, this does not erase the accumulated deterioration or the need for sustained corrective action.
These are not merely technical statistics. They represent water lost before reaching consumers, pollution of rivers and ecosystems, risks to public health, and communities whose constitutional right to sufficient water is compromised.
We must confront the institutional and governance weaknesses underpinning this crisis. Water infrastructure does not deteriorate overnight. It deteriorates when maintenance is repeatedly postponed, budgets are diverted, procurement processes are compromised, qualified technical personnel are not appointed and political considerations take precedence over professional competence.
Inadequate skills, indecisiveness and a lack of political will have become major obstacles to effective water service delivery. Too many institutions have struggled to translate available budgets, technical expertise and infrastructure plans into tangible results. Projects remain incomplete, critical assets are poorly maintained and corrective action plans are prepared without the urgency required to implement them.
The financial sustainability of the water value chain is another critical concern. Non-payment is not confined to one category of consumer. Households, businesses and organs of state, including government departments, owe municipalities substantial amounts for services rendered. National Treasury’s December 2025 figures put outstanding municipal consumer debt at R467.2 billion, comprising R335.3 billion owed by households, R94.7 billion by commercial institutions and R27.6 billion by organs of state.
Municipalities, in turn, owe water boards billions of rand for bulk water supplied. By July 2026, municipal debt owed to water boards had reached R23.77 billion, excluding current accounts. This creates a damaging chain of financial instability. When consumers do not pay municipalities, municipalities struggle to meet their obligations to water boards. When water boards do not receive payment, their ability to maintain, refurbish and expand critical bulk infrastructure is compromised. Ultimately, the entire water value chain suffers and communities bear the consequences.
A sustainable water sector requires a culture of payment, responsible financial management, effective credit control and the ring-fencing of water revenues for their intended purpose. The right of access to water must be protected, including through constitutionally compliant provision for indigent households, but non-payment by those who can afford to pay cannot be normalised.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s intervention, through the establishment of the National Water Crisis Committee and the release of the National Water Action Plan, deserves recognition. It signals an important acknowledgement that the crisis requires coordinated national leadership, institutional reform, infrastructure investment and accountability across all three spheres of government.
The Plan’s emphasis on infrastructure investment, public-private partnerships, ring-fencing water revenues, institutional reform and combating corruption and criminality provides an important foundation for recovery. However, national leadership must be matched by decisive action at provincial and municipal levels. A national plan cannot repair a leaking pipeline, restore a dysfunctional pump station or appoint a competent technical team by itself. Those responsibilities rest with institutions entrusted with delivering water services.
Those who have been constitutionally assigned these responsibilities must stop kicking the can down the road, making excuses or transferring blame. They must take ownership, make difficult decisions and be held accountable for failures within their areas of responsibility. Political will must be demonstrated through action, not announcements. Competence must take precedence over patronage, maintenance over neglect and implementation over endless planning.
Professionalising municipal water services must become a national priority. We need qualified engineers, scientists, process controllers, artisans, technicians, project managers and financial professionals who have the authority and institutional support to perform their responsibilities.
Government cannot resolve this crisis alone. Water boards, municipalities, professional associations, the private sector, organised labour, research institutions and communities must work together to restore the integrity of the water value chain.
As AWSISA, we believe that professional institutions must contribute their expertise, challenge institutional complacency and support practical solutions. Partnerships must move beyond conference resolutions towards infrastructure investment, technical support, skills development and measurable improvements in service delivery.
The test of the National Water Action Plan will not be the quality of its intentions or the number of meetings it generates. It will be whether communities experience fewer interruptions, municipalities reduce water losses, wastewater treatment works function properly, municipal accounts are paid and infrastructure projects are completed on time and within budget.
South Africa has the institutional foundations, technical expertise and national resources to turn this situation around. What we need is the political courage to act, the professional competence to deliver and the accountability to ensure that commitments translate into results.
We must stop treating water failure as an inevitable condition of our democracy. It is a failure that can and must be corrected. Let us fix what is broken, maintain what we have, build what is missing and hold every institution accountable for what it has been entrusted to deliver.
Water security must not remain a promise in policy documents. It must become a lived reality in every community. It is a responsibility we owe our people.
– Monyokolo is the chairperson of the Association for Water and Sanitation Institutions of South Africa (AWSISA).
- South Africa's water crisis is primarily due to failures in infrastructure, institutional performance, accountability, and governance rather than water availability.
- National non-revenue water stands at around 47.3%, indicating nearly half of municipal water is lost or unbilled due to leaks, illegal connections, and billing issues.
- Nearly half (47%) of municipal wastewater treatment systems are in critical condition, with a decline in systems achieving good or excellent performance.
- Outstanding municipal consumer debt for water services totals R467.2 billion, causing financial instability across the water value chain and impacting infrastructure maintenance.
- The National Water Action Plan emphasizes national leadership, infrastructure investment, institutional reform, and accountability, but success depends on effective implementation at municipal and provincial levels.
