As many regions across South Africa, including the City of Johannesburg and eThekwini, continue to grapple with significant water supply challenges and extended outages, the growing threat of water pollution could further overwhelm the country’s already vulnerable water supply systems.

Water and Sanitation Deputy Minister Sello Seitlholo – who has been outspoken about water pollution – says the pollution crisis is largely driven by failures in some municipal wastewater treatment plants, which are discharging untreated or partially treated sewage into South Africa’s freshwater systems, contaminating rivers, dams and groundwater sources.

This has far-reaching health implications, with exposure increasing the risk of waterborne diseases such as E.coli, cholera, diarrhoea and typhoid, besides others. It also affects agriculture, as farmers who irrigate with polluted water risk damaging their crops.

“We are facing a pollution crisis in South Africa and we have to take action now,” says Seitlholo, noting that no amount of cleaning the dams and rivers will help unless the sources of the problem are resolved.

Hartbeespoort dam and the Vaal river, for example, are plagued by persistent hyacinth and water lettuce invasions – their rapid growth partly fuelled by pollution as the invasive plants feed on the nutrients within wastewater – with efforts under way in both regions to eradicate the challenge.

The pollution also significantly increases the cost of treating potable water, further burdening municipalities already struggling with underfunded infrastructure and poor governance.

Many municipalities lack the resources, technical expertise, efficient revenue collection systems and operational oversight to effectively address the challenge.

According to the Blue Drop report, the quality of drinking water in 46% of the country’s 958 water supply systems does not comply with microbiological standards, while 44% of water supply systems do not comply with chemical standards for safe human consumption. Additionally, the Green Drop Progress Assessment shows that 64% of wastewater treatment works are at high or critical risk of discharging partially treated or untreated water into rivers and the environment.

Despite receiving substantial grants for water services, municipalities are failing to prioritise essential infrastructure upgrades, and many continue to struggle with inadequate staffing and poor operational maintenance.

The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) continues to undertake the Blue and Green Drop assessments of municipal water and sanitation performance, which provide an evidence base for evaluating progress, says Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina.

However, even with a yearly allocation of about R12-billion for water infrastructure, along with technical support, planning assistance, and capacity building, the DWS has, in general, not yet noticed any improvements in municipal performance.

The DWS has collaborated with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) to ensure that municipalities receive the necessary support and grant funding, including the Regional Bulk Infrastructure, Water Services infrastructure and Municipal Infrastructure grants, to refurbish and maintain their assets to improve wastewater management.

The department, along with the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agency and the South African Local Government Association, has also been assisting municipalities in developing action plans to ensure that the management of the wastewater treatment plants improves.

To date, 226 out of 334, or 68%, wastewater collector systems have submitted corrective action plans that are monitored by the department.

However, municipalities are also struggling with rapid urbanisation, which has intensified pressure on existing water infrastructure, with an influx of new residents leading to increased volumes of wastewater and many areas lacking the necessary waste removal systems.

Inadequate sanitation and waste disposal systems, particularly in informal settlements, are significant contributors to the pollution of nearby streams, leading to contamination downstream, while local governments often do not implement by-laws that curb pollution, says Seitlholo.

The challenge is further exacerbated by aging infrastructure that fails regularly, with broken sewage networks and overflowing manholes, for example, often resulting in raw sewage spilling into the streets and waterways.

While municipalities are bearing the bulk of the blame for South Africa’s polluted waters, mining and industrial activities are compounding the situation.

This includes agriculture run-off, illegal waste disposal into rivers, chemicals from industries and acid mine drainage from abandoned or poorly managed mines.

This is in addition to citizens littering and flushing items such as nappies, wet wipes and earbuds, besides others, into sewage systems, which also causes significant blockages and spills.

From an antipollution forum for the Vaal region and consumer awareness campaigns to a national polluters registry and a polluters pay model, along with legislative changes, the department is working to mitigate the challenge.

“As a department, we have made a commitment to give more focus on municipalities and we are also at the forefront of advocating the ‘polluter pays’ principle so that everyone knows of the repercussions of polluting our water bodies,” says Seitlholo.

The DWS is developing a database of polluters in the country, which will reflect the transgressions of the polluters and the actions taken against them.

However, the DWS can only do so much, as it is legislatively hampered from taking over municipal functions, and more intergovernmental commitment and stakeholder coordination are needed to pull the failing municipalities out of the danger zone of complete collapse and hold polluters, in general, accountable.

The need for systemic reform is urgent, and the DWS is pushing for stronger regulatory frameworks, including stricter penalties for municipalities and other polluters.

“We are monitoring our water users – municipalities, mines and industries. For municipalities, we have the Green Drop programme, where we assess all our municipalities’ wastewater,” says DWS water use compliance and enforcement chief director Anet Muir.

The DWS has issued notices and directives and embarked on criminal charges against municipalities for noncompliance with wastewater treatment standards, with 113 criminal cases – at the time of writing – having been instituted against municipalities alone for failing to adhere to a directive and for continuing to pollute.

Enforcement mechanisms remain a critical challenge, and the DWS is strengthening enforcement measures through amendments to the National Water Act and the Water Services Act for stronger penalties for offences, as well as criminal liability for municipal managers and company directors, she says.

However, penalties will not solve the underlying issues, such as insufficient resources, lack of technical expertise and ineffective municipal governance, which continue to undermine efforts.

“The interventions that we have are important, but we are dealing with the symptoms; we are not dealing with the cause,” warns Muir.

The Water Services Act is being amended to introduce an operating licensing requirement for water services providers to ensure the services provided meet minimum national norms and standards and have a minimum level of competence.

Further, there is a need for local governments to improve their revenue collection systems and allocate funds properly for the maintenance and upgrading of critical water infrastructure.

There is currently no legal requirement for municipalities to use revenue from the sale of water and from sanitation charges to fund the maintenance and operation of water and sanitation infrastructure.

Many municipalities are also experiencing a high volume of nonrevenue water, and the financial strain on local governments continues to grow.

According to the DWS, responding to questions posed by Engineering News & Mining Weekly, the National Treasury is leading the process of ring-fencing of water revenue in metropolitan municipalities through the Reform of Metropolitan Trading Services Programme.

“To date, the councils of six of the metropolitans have approved water and sanitation turnaround strategies which include ring- fencing of revenues from the sale of water for the water function.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his State of the Nation Address, in February, said that work will start this year to establish professionally managed, ring-fenced utilities for water services to ensure that there is adequate investment and maintenance.

“We will review the funding model for municipalities as many of them do not have a viable and sustainable revenue base and we will expand our support to municipalities that require assistance, drawing on the lessons of the Presidential eThekwini Working Group.”

He explained that many of the challenges in municipalities arise from the design of the local government system, and extensive consultation will be undertaken to develop an updated White Paper on Local Government to outline a modern and fit-for-purpose local government system.

The DWS is also participating in the interdepartmental processes that will be put in place by CoGTA to develop drafts of the revised white paper.

During a Portfolio Committee presentation on the implementation of the Municipal Performance Turnaround Strategy, which targets distressed municipalities and introduces policy and legislative support measures to strengthen local government, CoGTA pointed to a 13% increase in stable municipalities from 30, or 12%, in 2022 to 61, or 24%, in 2023.

The number of municipalities in distress reduced from 66, or 25%, to 35, or 13%, during the same period.

“Central to the municipal turnaround plan is a dedicated focus on the viability and sustainability of water and sanitation utilities, anchored on graduating them into ring-fenced legal entities, that have the capacity to raise investment capital to address all capital and operational management of the service, including addressing household affordability as well as expansion of the services to underserviced communities,” the department outlined.

While there was an overall reduction of municipalities at risk in 2022 and 2023, the improved performance had not yet translated into service delivery and governance improvement.

Stable governance is essential for ensuring water security, and the success of bulk water provision is premised on stable accounting authorities, the Association of Water and Sanitation Institutions of South Africa comments.

“The consequences of unstable governance are well-documented. The collapse of entities such as Eskom, South African Airways and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa can be attributed, in part, to governance challenges.”

South Africa’s water pollution crisis requires urgent and comprehensive action. From improving wastewater treatment to addressing industrial pollution and the challenges of rapid urbanisation, there is no quick fix, Seitlholo says, pointing out that the crisis is not just about cleaning polluted rivers and dams – it is about addressing the systemic failures that have caused the pollution in the first place.

Without a coordinated effort from all stakeholders, including local and national government, industries and communities, South Africa’s water resources will continue to deteriorate, and there is need to find a multidisciplined and coordinated way to address the issues.

“If there is no coordination among us as government to address the reforms at a local level, including the issues of pollution, we will not achieve anything,” he says.

Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi assures that the current intergovernmental relations and coordination is working, and will resolve the water challenge.

“We are working together with all municipalities. Local government leadership is planning together and working together, and from December to now, there has been a drastic, drastic improvement,” he says.