South Africa’s water insecurity has reached a critical point, with nearly 98% of the nation’s available freshwater resources already allocated, posing a threat that requires a leadership response akin to the one used to tackle the electricity crisis, a leading expert has warned.
Professor Mark Swilling, Co-Director of the Stellenbosch University Centre for Sustainability Transitions, issued the stark assessment, highlighting severe parallels and key differences between the electricity and water crises. He stated that while the government’s decisive action on load-shedding has shown progress, the water sector presents a far more complex challenge.
“The obvious first parallel is that they are both crises,” said Prof. Swilling, referencing an article he co-authored with Dr. Zeph Nhleko of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA). He pointed to the “very significant leadership initiatives” taken in 2022, including the establishment of the National Electricity Crisis Committee, the Energy Action Plan, and the appointment of Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa as the Minister of Electricity.
“Minister Ramokgopa changed the narrative and said we have a problem and had weekly briefings to inform the nation of the steps being taken,” Prof. Swilling stated. “We need a very similar bold leadership initiative to address the water crisis.”
However, a critical difference, he explained, is the absence of a single, powerful entity like Eskom in the water sector. Instead, the system is a “cumbersome and complex” network involving the Department of Water and Sanitation, 256 water-delivering municipalities, 15 water boards, and entities like the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority.
This fragmented structure, operating “on the back of a very weak department” that was “hollowed out” during state capture, makes a top-down solution difficult. Prof. Swilling did credit the current department leadership, specifically Director-General Sean Phillips, with beginning to rebuild and advance a “water reform agenda.”
The professor identified the dysfunction in many of the 256 municipalities as the core of the crisis. He explained that when revenue collected from residents for water is not spent on operations and maintenance, a vicious cycle begins: services decline, payment rates drop, and less money is available for upkeep.
“If we don’t solve the municipal problem, we’re not going to solve the water problem and communities will continue to face serious breakdowns,” he said, citing instances like Polokwane where residents have been without water for weeks. He warned that the R28 billion that municipalities already owe to water boards is set to balloon, mirroring the debt crisis in the electricity sector, and will likely influence voter behaviour in next year’s local government elections.
Compounding the infrastructure and governance issues is an ecological crisis. Prof. Swilling revealed that the health of the nation’s freshwater resources is in a “very, very, very serious state.”
“You can count the number of rivers that are unaffected by pollution on one hand,” he said, citing a recent sustainability report developed with University College London that ranked South Africa’s freshwater resources as its worst-performing indicator.
He dispelled the notion that building more dams is a solution, emphasizing that water is a finite resource that cannot be manufactured like electricity. “There’s a limited amount of rain that falls… that’s it,” he said. “We have to figure out how to use water far more efficiently… clean up our rivers… [and] decouple growth from water consumption. It’s a strategic imperative of major significance.”
With the reform agenda expected to take longer than a year to show effect, the professor concluded that the government faces a significant bind as it races to address a crisis that threatens both basic service delivery and the nation’s long-term economic and environmental stability.