JOZINI, KwaZulu-Natal — As local elections approach, the Ekhandane village water crisis in northern KwaZulu-Natal has become a defining issue for residents demanding basic service delivery. Despite residing adjacent to one of the country’s most significant water reserves, the isolated community continues to fight for reliable running water, turning the upcoming vote into a critical referendum on municipal accountability and infrastructure development.
The geographical irony of Ekhandane is stark. Nestled on a highland plateau within the Jozini local municipality, near the South Africa-Eswatini border, the village boasts sweeping views of the Pongolapoort Dam (also known as the Jozini Dam). Yet, the communities surrounding this massive reservoir have been entirely excluded from its benefits, leaving them without clean, running tap water.
For pensioners, this systemic failure is a daily physical ordeal. They have spent their lives trekking kilometers to reach deep springs and streams, hauling heavy 20-liter barrels back to their homes. The physical toll of this chore has intensified with age. In a bid to safeguard their only drinking source from livestock, residents have been forced to construct a makeshift barrier around the spring.
“Since we began voting in 1994, clean tap water has never reached us,” a community member explained. “We are forced to share the stream with cattle and donkeys. We try our best to purify the water, but we still get sick with cholera. We are begging for help.”
The desperation has created severe secondary risks. The water collection area is highly secluded, prompting local women to travel in groups to protect themselves from potential attacks. When the stream begins to dry up, some residents are driven to sleep at the water’s edge just to secure enough water to fill their containers.
At the heart of the community’s frustration is a history of broken promises and dormant infrastructure. In 2014, a reservoir was constructed and bulk water pipes were buried with the explicit goal of connecting households to the municipal grid. However, twelve years and three different municipal administrations later, not a single drop of water has flowed from the system. Locals emphasize that the pipes were never connected, and while funds were reportedly disbursed for a powerful generator intended to pump water up the steep hills, the equipment has yielded no tangible results.
This prolonged service delivery collapse has ignited a political tug-of-war between the ANC and the IFP over water supply management in northern KwaZulu-Natal. In a bid to address the immediate emergency, the district municipality recently announced a plan to allocate nearly 15 million rand to purchase five water tankers for distribution to remote areas.
However, this proposed stopgap measure has faced sharp institutional pushback. The Department of Cooperative Governance has formally intervened, calling for the tanker initiative to be scrapped entirely. The department condemned the multi-million-rand purchase as a “reckless expenditure,” arguing that it fails to address the root cause of the infrastructural collapse and diverts funds from permanent solutions.
With campaigning in full swing, the people of Ekhandane remain cautiously optimistic. After three decades of waiting, the community is unified in its demand that this election cycle finally translates political rhetoric into the tangible, life-saving reality of running water.
