The President has put himself at the head of a new National Water Crisis Committee, backed by R156 billion in infrastructure spending and criminal charges against 56 municipalities. The question now is whether it can do for water what a…
Civil society groups and the Human Rights Commission are calling on government to use disaster law to tackle the water crisis. A declaration could unlock money and speed, but it also carries real risks. For months, residents of Johannesburg and…
After years of unsafe water and broken promises, the community north of Pretoria is close to receiving reliable drinking water from an expanded Klipdrift treatment works. The work is late, but it is real. Few places have come to symbolise…
A bill tabled this month would ban private trading in water rights, let government take back unused allocations and put strict limits on mining and forestry in the country’s most important catchments. It could reshape who controls South Africa’s water.…
The new year brought no relief for Johannesburg’s taps. A run of burst pipes, empty reservoirs and a contamination scare shows how far the city’s water network has fallen, and how much it would cost to fix. Any hope that…
The Department of Water and Sanitation has moved against JB Marks Local Municipality after years of complaints about raw sewage flowing from Ikageng into the Mooi River, a source of water for homes, farms and industry in the North West.…
For the first time, the Auditor-General has audited the entire water value chain, from the national department to the municipal tap. The picture it presented to Parliament this week is of a system failing at almost every link. On Tuesday…
The money exists in the books but not in the bank. A parliamentary briefing this week showed how Johannesburg’s finances and its failing water network are tied together. For two months, one number has hung over Johannesburg’s water crisis: R4…
An independent, volunteer-led testing programme has found that most of the sewage works it sampled are still discharging polluted effluent into South Africa’s rivers, even as drinking water quality holds steady. On 10 December 2025, the civil rights organisation AfriForum…
How politics, mismanagement, and money intertwine in one of the country’s most vital public resources. Water, like energy, sits at the heart of South Africa’s development story.It fuels industries, sustains cities, and defines livelihoods. But it’s also a political battleground…